Adam Jensen is Not the Golem of Prague

It should be a given. But there are some things you have to force yourself to see. Like wringing a dishcloth, a metaphor can foam, drip, and slither down the drain without a second thought. And even going to Golem City in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided doesn’t make it any more real.

Mankind Divided is, if you’ll pardon my Czech, a fucking mess. Despite being perhaps the closest we’ve gotten to a true successor to the original Deus Ex, its identity is a pastiche. As an entry in the catalog of immersive-sims, it’s intricate and masterfully crafted. But as a cyberpunk drama, it’s inchoate and muddy.

I ask myself, “Why is this game set in Prague, of all places?” Thematically, it gestures clumsily at American civil rights movements, and particularly the mainstream recognition of racial violence from the police. Why Czechoslovakia? But then I remember Golem City, the aug ghetto.

The Golem of Prague is one of the few cool monsters Jews get, so I treasure it. The golem is a clay guardian created by Rabbi Loew to protect the ghetto from pogroms. The story usually ends with the golem’s destruction after it loses control. The children of Adam make golems from clay, and God makes Adam himself from clay, but what is Adam Jensen made from?

The Adam Jensen that topples terrorist organizations and deals with international megacorporations is no golem. But the highlight of Mankind Divided isn’t the main plot, but its vibrant hub filled with characters and sidequests. The Adam Jensen that saves the abused, that refuses to shed blood, the Adam Jensen that wouldn’t feel out of place in Action Comics, that is our golem. The hero of the ghettos, a shadowy guardian of the downtrodden.

And so that’s where I should say, “Swish! Essay done.” Explain the golem metaphor, explain how it applies to Mankind Divided, conclusion paragraph, social media plug. And yet trying to bring that essay to life is filled with empty breath.

When I learned about Golem City, it should have been the moment it all clicked. But only days later did the thought creep into my mind. It’s a place of abject poverty and oppression. But none of it lands as a place in reality. Golem City is a ghetto for a minority that doesn’t exist. One of the problems with re-inventing prejudice in your sci-fi story is that you discard all the history that gives that oppression its unique shape. The oppression of augs in Mankind Divided simply doesn’t make a lot of sense. Its racial metaphor has been rightfully criticized – it’s not only incoherent but offensive. It doesn’t feel real. It has no history, no real history, no community, no people, not real ones.

Because Adam Jensen may be a golem metaphor, he’s also Robocop. And Robocop is anything but a hero. And even when Adam goes out of his way to fight for justice, he’s still a cop. All the help he gives is in the shadow of the violence he is capable of. He wasn’t built by a rabbi. He was built by Sarif Industries. He worked on a SWAT team and he works for Interpol. We can pretend he comes from nowhere, from Krypton, a cave of bats, a pile of mud. But we know where he comes from and why he’s here.

The Adam of the bible is made from clay, and so the Maharal too made the golem from clay. But the Adam of Deus Ex? He is no golem. Born not from clay, he is an ersatz golem of flesh and steel, so impeccable that he is not even a man at all. His perfection makes him incomplete. A golem cannot exist without the scars of history.

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vehemently is a pseudonymous writer in the Pacific Northwest, writing on games, culture, and philosophy.