She's the first genuinely helpful character you meet in a world of total dicks. She drops some of the most important lore about the world of Disco Elysium. The Insulindian Miracle. The Antecentennial Revolution. The four political alignments. The shape of the world. She's got a totally bitchin' theme song.
She's also a real piece of work.
Joyce tells you the hanged man was a Krenel merc, one of a trio hired for security during her diplomatic mission. She tells you the mercenaries weren't her idea, that the Wild Pines Board hired them. They're dangerous thugs and they're going to kill everyone unless someone finds the real killer. She's just a lowly negotiator, powerless to stop them.
At the end of the game, if you pass a skill check, you learn that she IS the Wild Pines board, probably a ranking member. She hired the mercenaries. She knew the kind of people they were, and she brought them in to break the strike anyway. The events of the game are her fault.
Then, she says she's done. She won't take the harbor back. The Union can have it. No more mercenaries, no war, no bodies piling up in the streets. Evrart's a piece of shit, just as bad as her if we're being honest. Just as willing to kill people and let his people die to get his way. But he's doing what she wished she had done, during the revolution. Standing up to a foreign invasion. Rebuilding Martinaise.
She makes a choice to stop being a shitty person. To stop hurting people.
It's the most uplifting thing that happens in the game, even more than meeting the phasmid. If Joyce can become a better person, then maybe so can Detective Raphael Ambrosius Cousteau.
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