This was originally written as a comment for Codex Entry’s second-part summary/analysis of the Bachelor Route in Pathologic Classic HD (which I highly recommend watching even if you’ve already played through the game), but I felt like posting it here too since I put a lot of effort into thinking this through and don’t want to see it become lost to the comment section’s ether completely.

The way I see it, the Bachelor’s greatest failing comes not from his callousness to the townsfolk or his naivety to the Kains’ true plans (although both of those traits certainly helped set up this tragedy); it was his own private obsession with attaining victory over the plague.

From the very beginning, the game makes sure to establish that Daniil Dankovsky’s main goal is inextricably tied to his character and motivations. In his very first conversation with Eva he explicitly states he has chosen Death as his mortal enemy, comparing it to a “whim of the will that has shaped the world” instead of an inevitability. In another early-game conversation with Georgiy, he has the option to claim that he is no “fatalist” or to proclaim that “time, nature, and fate” deny men of the responsibility they have over their choices, and thus scoffs at the idea of being ruled over by them. And of course there’s all those comments he makes to many characters about how he is “used to winning” and wants to win in all of his quests throughout the game.

As far as the doctor is concerned, he is an entirely self-reliant man who willingly chose to venture out to the Town-on-Gorkhon on the faint hope that rumors of an immortal man were true, and thus would provide him with the proof he needs to help save his life’s work in Thanatica and finally grant him dominance over the seemingly unstoppable force of nature that is Death.

When news of Simon’s murder swiftly crushes that little pocket of hope, Daniil quickly dedicates his time to helping solve the mystery of his murder on the basis that doing so could still salvage some scraps of revelation about Simon’s secrets to longevity (a.k.a. Georgiy deliberately withholding information on his brother unless Dankovsky helps them). He then discovers the sand pest and, well, I don’t need to summarize all of the mayhem he endures after that. What’s important to note, though, is that as the story trudges on we the player are shown how every one of Dankovsky’s ideologies and goals are continuously refuted.

He refuses to believe that time and nature can have hold on his choices, but is undeniably controlled by the massive size of the town and how his travels wastes the precious time he could be using, especially once the infected districts and their downright-predatory plague clouds force him and the player to need to consider detours that waste even more time. He claims to not be a fatalist, but sets up his own inescapable fate inside the town after appointing Saburov as emergency governor and later learns from Aglaya that the government was always going to destroy Thanatica despite the doctor’s actions AND that the plague itself will inevitably destroy everything in the town in accordance with the logic of their world. He dedicates himself to saving lives, but is prevented from saving certain people and is forced to take several lives throughout his ordeal.

He goes through so much of the game thinking that he is in control of his own actions, only to discover in the end that everything is fake and he is nothing more than a toy being played with by both the children and the player.

Yet with the exception of that one escape attempt on the night of Day 2, the Bachelor never wavers from his goal of stopping the plague. Even as his morals are tested, as the aching soreness in his feet become unbearable with every step, as infection, rot, and wounds eat away at his body, as he endures every unavoidable failure and humiliation while the ruling families continue to pass him around like a blunt to satisfy their own selfish ends, he devotes himself wholly to destroying the town and preserving the Polyhedron because to him it is how he must win against the plague.

Against Death.

Against the Game Itself.

By the very end Daniil no longer even cares about his own aspirations, which I believe is why he goes along with Maria Kaina’s personal plans for a utopia despite knowing that he was nothing more than a tool for her and her family. His mind has taken in the magnitude and internal tranquility of the Polyhedron and solidified it as the only thing left in his life worth saving, despite still having no solid, rational explanation as to what the edifice even is and what it could be used to accomplish. It represents his last hope, the lost dreams of his childhood and destroyed ambitions of his adulthood. Even if he brings the Haruspex and Changeling with him to the meeting at the Cathedral, he ignores their testimonies in his canon ending because one wants to destroy the Polyhedron completely while the other is content with keeping the town and tainting the ‘hedron’s magnificence with its diseased-ridden foulness.

…But no victory is granted to Dankovsky once he makes his case and ensures the town’s destruction. He is, after all, the only healer who doesn’t appear in his ending’s cutscene, and the last action the player makes for him is going to sleep in a bed inside the town. The town that is about to be destroyed.

Now, I am aware that the game’s utopian characters must be drawing on the real-life utopians of Russia’s history in some way, and as someone who is not a part of that culture I could be missing out on some key themes here, but when it comes to Daniil’s choice to back the plans of the utopians I can’t help but think of the literal meaning of the word “utopia,” derived from the Greek οὐ-τόπος, “no place.” Personally, I feel that this meaning reflects directly onto the Bachelor’s situation throughout the story.

He had no place in the capitol, for his goals were defying the Law.

He had no place in the Town, for he is an outsider and chooses to remain one.

He had no place in the Kains’ new world, now that his usefulness to them has been depleted.

And by the end he had no place left in the game, for he gave up everything to achieve just one single grand achievement in his life.

And by the end he had no place left in the game, for he gave up everything to achieve just one single grand achievement in his life.

The Bachelor won the game, but at what cost?