Same anon! Your reply was great and it makes me think more so - another wall of text! Again, apologies I hope I’m not clogging up your inbox. Kim is just,, incredibly interesting because he’s a mess of contradictions. Him admiring your low kill count and saying more officers should be less trigger happy vs. his first instinct in any situation to be going for his gun. His whole appearance mimicking revolutionary attire while explicitly being an arm of the police state. How he holds onto the notion that the RCM is descended from the ICM. I remember you can ask him if he’s a moralist in front of another moralist and he gives you a vaguely affirmative answer but one of your skills pops up and goes something like (he doesn’t want to appear to be anything but in front of people because it might do damage to the RCM) It’s implied that he might’ve had more revolutionary thoughts in his youth. But it’s as you’ve said, he’s resigned himself to the idea that this word isn’t going to change and so he devotes himself fully to the RCM because it’s the only thing he’s sure of. It’s the only way to feel like he’s in some semblance of control over his life. If something doesn’t seem explicitly related to the case he’s pursuing he doesn’t think it’s worth going after. He’s really good at turning a blind eye to stuff, and has very intentionally stopped letting himself care. (Again, to varying levels of success) Which is why it’s so interesting that we can see that start to crack over the course of the game. He still tries to feign the same exterior, but it’s clear that the city has affected him. (Nothing demonstrates this quite as well as the Phasmid scene, where a thought he was so sure of, something he held as infallible, is proven to be false and it causes him to falter and reconsider everything) I don’t think it’s enough to shake him from his resigned state in and of itself, but it can definitely lay a foundation like you said. I think it’s pretty accurate to say he’s probably never going to stop being on the fence until there is no fence anymore. Until the idea he has built in his head that the RCM is unchanging and eternal (insofar as it relates to his lifespan) is demonstrably proven to be untrue. I also agree completely with your notion of what exactly the fragile optimism is in this game. One of the ideas it plays around with that I like so much is that you can always choose to be a better person, it’s never too late for that. It won’t undo the damage you’ve done, and it might be too late for you to see the world change, but that doesn’t mean that any change you create in yourself isn’t worth it.

AAAAAAUUUUUU EXACTLY YEAH YEAH YEAH you put it all so succinctly I don’t even have much to add HDKSHDH but god yeah… [collapses into the family guy death pose] Kim…

The other thing that always gets me is his one cig a day rule and the psyche check (I forget which skill, probably empathy) that reveals that Kim probably likes that sense of control over his addiction and GOD THATS SO. ITS SO. YOU KNOW. One cig a day, but you’re still addicted to the nicotine. Good cop, but still a cop addicted to the small sense of power and control that being a cop gives u to distract from how powerless u really are… YOU KNOW???

BUT YEAH GOD JUST LIKE YOU SAID… it’s never too late to try to do better so long as ur seeking to do something more than just atone or make urself feel better for what you did… you can still change just for the sake of being better… sunrise, parabellum… it’ll always be a battle but you can do it…