It’s been years since I played through these games, and I have forgotten much, but “has to dance for money” is not the whole story.

It’s more like “has to dance for money, has to always give all income to another person and is physically not able to leave before having saved up a large sum of money to pay the debt”, or something along those lines. And the reasons were out of her control, but very crucially, also out of the control of the protagonist.

I find it refreshing to get to play the bad guy in a game. He’s doing things I absolutely would never do, and it is me who has to click the button to command him to do those atrocities. It’s good because you should know your enemy, and this gives me a perspective that let’s me peek into the thinking of an absolute fucking asshole. Also, if you ever find any similarities between what you’d do and what the protagonist does, you know that’s something you need to process in yourself.

But… There are so many spots where the horrible things happen to the people in the game for reasons not in control of the protagonist. So, you should probably re-read previous paragraph, adding a lot of “would” words in there. Because when it’s not about the protagonist being evil, it’s about the developers being mean. You’re not role-playing an asshole, you’re playing a game that is an asshole towards various minorities.

Of course: I did play the game in German. Others are saying many of the jokes get missed if you play it in English. Maybe the game is kind of milder if played in English, then? Maybe it’s left more ambiguous whether the people in the game will really live a miserable life for the rest of their days?