For me, the best version of this is Avatar: The Last Airbender. Aang spends an entire arc lamenting how he may need to spill blood and kill the Fire Lord. Meanwhile the very same Aang had previously sunk an entire naval fleet single-handedly.
How many thousands of sailors, most of them probably people drafted against their will, did you kill that day Aang? Remember when you literally sliced entire ships in half? Your hands cut through steel, would you have even felt the flesh you were cutting through? Or how about all those ships you sank? A fair number sank instantly. You think everybody got out safely from those ships? Or how about that time you destroyed that giant drill machine, the one manned by thousands of soldiers, outside the walls of Ba Sing Se? You think everyone managed to miraculously escape that fireball? And those are just the major battles. How about the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of fire nation soldiers you casually tossed around like rag dolls with your powers of air, water, and earth during dozens of minor skirmishes? What are the odds you managed to toss all these men around like playthings and NOT have a few of them have their skulls bashed open on rocks when they hit the ground wrong?
The point of this is not to condemn Aang’s actions through the series. His actions were fully justified, as he was fighting a war against an expansionist colonial military power. What he did was an objective good. But by the time he’s hand wringing about having to kill Fire Lord Ozai, Aang had almost certainly already taken hundreds of lives. Hell, he probably killed hundreds just in that final climactic battle against the airship armada. The Hindenburg disaster saw 1/3 of the passenger and crew parish. And that was from an airship that crashed when it was already landing and close to the ground. Aang was dropping ships from miles in the sky. Maybe some soldiers with fire bending powers could somehow slow their own descent enough to survive, maybe they had some parachutes. But there’s zero chance that Armada didn’t have a fatality rate at least comparable to the Hindenburg disaster.
So Aang blithely kills hundreds of conscripts without a second thought. But then he has a crisis of conscience that takes multiple episodes to resolve, and that crisis of conscience is all about…Fire Lord Ozai? This is like if someone nonchalantly participated in the Firebombing of Dresden and then suddenly developed complex moral doubts about putting a bullet in Hitler’s head. Aang had already killed hundreds of people that Ozai had sent to their deaths. No one was forcing Ozai. He wasn’t a conscript. He had full autonomy; he’s the absolute ruler of the Fire Nation. He doesn’t even have a Congress or Parliament to answer to. He has absolute total moral responsibility for every evil thing the Fire Nation has done. Yet, when it comes to actually holding the powerful accountable, suddenly Aang wants to talk about the morality of killing.
Aang was very explicitly not in control of himself during the invasion of the north, and he became scared of his power due to his experiences with the avatar state.
The whole moral conundrum is about him consciously choosing to kill the Fire Lord. Yes, he most likely caused deaths before, but not consciously & deliberately.
Sure, there is that difference. But the series doesn’t even address the fact that he’s already killed hundreds of people. Intentionally or not, it’s still absurd to hand wring about killing when you’ve already killed hundreds of people, accidentally or not, and the one person you’re worrying about taking down is literal genocidal maniac. To me that just sounds like not being willing to take responsibility for your own actions. Intentionally or not, Aang killed hundreds of people. And it’s not like he never went into the Avatar state again after taking out the Northern fleet. Hell, he fought Ozai while in the Avatar state. Maybe he should have just “accidentally” killed Ozai while in the Avatar state and just washed his hands of moral culpability, just like he did all the other people he killed before then.
Regardless, Aang found a way to make peace with the fact that he had taken hundreds of lives. But when the person in question is someone of power and renown? Then it becomes something to fret over.
Lol I cringed so hard at that.
Also
Legend of Korra spoilers
Aang being the merciful idiot he is and letting Yakone live is why his recincarnation had to deal with the Amon problem. 🤦♂️ ::
Plus I thought Avatar Yang Chen’s argument was amazing. She told Aang that his duties to protect people as the Avatar outweighed his spiritual need to be a pacifist.
Clearly some people’s lives are more valuable than others’ /s
I mean, you’re not wrong without the /s, but it is hilarious whos lives are considered important in media…
wrong bracket in the Link.
Also: good writeup, I like it :)
Thanks! Fixed.
To be fair, if my kill count was at 69420, I’d need a REALLY good reason to kill one more
If I were at 69419, he’d be dead without a second thought
Fallout 3. Slaughter the vault of police officers (who you grew up knowing), but grow a conscience when you meet the overseer. Take out armies of enclave soldiers, but let the weirdo Colonel Autumn walk away.
Fucking Moon Knight. That dude’s whole thing is killing mother fuckers at the top, he prides himself on being a murderer of murderers and crime bosses and he’s not going to give a fuck what you think of his moral stance, yet at the end of the Disney+ series he decides he’s a fucking universalist or some shit? Fuck that! Moon Knight is a straight up murderer, he would be the first person to tell you that he is a murderer and that he don’t give a fuck how anyone feels about it.
Also, they didn’t use the song Dead Moon Night by Dead Moon when there was a dead Moon Knight. Fuck that show.
I mean, couldn’t that moon knight be the personality that deus ex machina’s everything in the disney+ show? The personality that they show has taken over by the end? (or became more prominent, I dunno’, it’s been years since I’ve seen it)
Fuck that. Deus ex machina is just a fancy way to say bullshit writing that disregards everything. If they wanted that kind of story they should have used a different character.
The Last of Us 2. I don’t know, I haven’t played the game yet
You might not have played the game but you are spot on. No other piece of media is as guilty of this as TLOU2. Ellie literally travels hundreds of miles and kills hundreds of people on her path to revenge, then I’m supposed to believe she has some epiphany during the final fight and she decides to not kill her target??? That target being the whole reason the game exists??? Totally ruined it for me.
I hated that when it happened in Titan A.E.
Moment in question - late in the film
The fate of all humanity is at stake, and this guy took bribes to kill all humans - but this kid spares him.
Movie Conclusion / Moral of the story
And then the guy he spared makes the sacrifie play, saving all of humanity, so maybe don’t trust me with those kinds of judgement calls, I guess.
because they want us to kill each other, the low ranking riffraff and feel nothing over that, but not the big badd bbillionaires and friends
Media targeted at a large audience tends to dumb moral and philosophical conundrums down to the simplest possible gesture instead of taking the ideas seriously.
This is because the villain has slain 69,421 people. Killing him would give the hero the same bodycount, and thus make them exactly the same.
You’re killing me.
69,421.5
Edit: Please update when you’re fully dead, OP, so I can finalize the new count.
RIP, Stumpy.
Strong Last of Us 2 vibes.
That game had such an interesting setup and completely fucking fumbled every single second.
The idea of a split story arc where two hurt people are hunting one another for revenge and how it devastates the both of them in the end is so cool, but then it’s written with the emotional intelligence of a five year old and completely fucking missing the concept of subtlety and earned pay offs. Everything is forced, everything is overly mean spirited to the point where you just kinds hate everybody and roots for no one. You’re literally forced as the player to torture and kill several people and animals throughout the game.
And when you finally get to the climax there’s a lame as fuck “revenge is bad mkay” message tagged on to the end. It rings hollow and it isn’t earned. Such an immature script trying to tackle such an interesting concept.
It really shows you that there are no bad ideas, only bad execution.
“You should feel bad for utilizing these gameplay mechanics we designed the game around. You monster!”
I distinctly remember them claiming that you had the choice to spare the dogs, but they would viciously attack you and blow your cover every chance you got so you literally didn’t have any other choice than to kill them sometimes. Then there were the plot related actions where the story took your choices away from you and forced you to kill a dog and torture a woman to death as Ellie.
And the ironic thing was that they claimed they wanted you to feel bad for killing people in the game and had the npcs yelling out the names of the people you killed, but I literally felt nothing.
Meanwhile when I played the first game and got to the hospital scene, I was so fucking devastated because I didnt want to kill the fireflies. Up until that point you had mostly killed zombies and deranged people who were directly putting you and ellie in danger. But the fireflies felt different. I was so devastated making my way to Ellie. The game did a fantastic job showing how Joel was crossing a line in his humanity in order to protect the one person in the world that gave his life meaning. It was at once a very beautiful and very tragic climax to a story about humanity in dire circumstances. So beautifully made.
Ain’t gonna sit there and cry over some random dog or some dumb npc named Jason when I’m forced to plow down hundreds of them while rarely if ever getting to attack zombies becuase they’re barely present in the game by comparison.
If you want to treat human lives as precious in your game, don’t make your player kill them by the hundreds the whole time. Fuck man. I sometimes wonder if Druckmann really wrote the first game at all or if he just took credit for some underling’s work because I struggle to believe that the same writer who wrote this emotionally complex game is also the same writer who pooped out its sequel.
Sorry for long rant. I just really hate that stupid game.
I played and liked the first game, but when I read the reviews of part II it reminded me of the torture mission in GTA5, which I absolutely hated. So I skipped it, and I’m glad I did.
Glad you did as well. It was painfully unpleasant and dull to get through. My friend and I genuinely didn’t enjoy ourselves once except for maybe when a heavily pregnant character decided to do parkour and be in active combat for a good part of the game. My friend and I are both women and we kept joking about how this game was clearly written by a man who doesn’t know any mothers in his personal life. It was so dumb.
There is a good version of that.
All you had to do was put the controller down and walk away.
Spec Ops the Line is art. You don’t have a “choice” to not use the white phosphorus if you are going to play - but just like Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now - no one needs to be there/participating to begin with.
Claims moral superiority for never buying the game and instead buying Factorio
Wow! I was the good guy all along!*
*Except on Nauvis
“You’re still a good person.”
Legacy of Kain: Defiance handled that concept much better.
Haven’t played that game, but I will take your word for it!
Nigel powers: _look at you, you don’t even have a name that! You don’t stand a chance. Put your guns down. That’s right, put them down on the floor.
I get the vague impression that this is meant to subtly influence western society into believing that the masses aren’t truly people, that only the ones steering our collective wheels are actually human. Green arrow basically said as much for like… 5 seasons. Then it got weirder.
Arrow only ran for 2 seasons and a brief 9-episode third season. Such a shame he got shanked and thrown off a mountain to end the series.
There were a few moments in the Marvel Universe. Spider-Man even had his first movie based off the common man and results of super hero actions to create new baddies. But the one that stands out to me is in Iron Man 3, where Tony is going to fire on one of the bad guys in the compound and the guy throws down his gun and says, “Honestly, I hate working here. They are so weird.”
By story logic, the henchmen really weren’t “true people”, but metaphors for environment difficulties. For example, a young adult watching superhero comics would think of homeworks, social media negativities, etc.
I get the vague impression that this is meant to subtly influence western society into believing that the masses aren’t truly people
Tinfoil hat theory would be that the evil leaders of real life (the ceos, the billionaires, etc) are planting the seeds so that if their plans fail and a revolution comes, they won’t be summarily executed
What of they don’t have to intentionally plant seeds? They just cancel anything that makes their power fantasy uncomfortable? :3
Could you imagine?
“For the crimes of economy-scale larceny, murder, environmental collapse, bribery, tax evasion, and, uhh, sexual battery of a pack of golden retrievers, how do you plea?”
“C’mon, I’m just a little guy!”
“D’aww”
I’m not an expert, but I’m like five-nines certain a guillotine does not make a “D’aww” sound when activated.
We could build that in. Glue on some googly eyes too.
A nice clownly guffaw right before impact would be delightful.
That show was so damn weird. Felt like the writers were trapped on an island where they were forced to keep writing about the island
“The island is all that we know, and we write what we know. Send help.”
I played that game with my best friend and we hated every single second of it. To me, this is the game version of GoT season 8.
I still find it incredible that Druckmann stuck to his guns and copy pasted this terribly executed storyline into the second season of the show. Idiot learned nothing. I’m glad I decided to skip the second season and just enjoy the first season as a stand alone. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey did a great job as Joel and Ellie, but I sincerely doubt that even they could save the used toilet paper that is the script for Last of Us 2.
I never played the game, but I did know about the first game’s ending and about Joel’s fate in the second one, due to the controversy. I really liked the first season, but the second one just ruined it. It had its moments—sure. However, the entire story hinges on an extremely flawed premise. I just couldn’t get immersed being reminded of it at every step.
I decided to take a peek at the fandom reactions and thought I was taking the crazy pills. Gamers loved it, and of course anyone who disagreed was a bigot or a hater. I guess it’s just my luck to stumble into shows that turn into shit and then get gaslighted by the fandom into believing I’m somehow the crazy one.
For TLOU S2 in particular, Abby can go get fucked, for all I care, and the writers can shove the victim blaming up their ass.
Same. I was looking forward to it so much, loved the first one, but this ruined my mood for weeks during the already shitty covid & lockdown period. And not in a “sad story” way, but in a “I waited years and I got disappointed” way.
Now the negative reaction of general audience to the second season of the show demonstrates how the story just sucks regardless of the medium, but gamers were gaslighted into thinking that only transphobe incels hated the game. Well, I guess not.
I loved the gameplay and the graphics, but the story is just badly written and utter shit. My wife loves to watch me play, but was scratching her head in the final hours of this game, trying to make sense of this mess.
And this would be fine, art is subjective, they took a risk, it didn’t work out - but if you dare point this out, you get branded a hater/bigot/etc and your opinion is discredited. Well fuck them, I paid full price for this game on day 1, and I didn’t like it. My opinion is valid, so I’m going to repeat it as many times as I want to.
It is so insidious when they do that with any piece of media. Use minority groups as a shield against well deserved criticism. It’d just been a thing in entertainment for so long that I kinda ended up tapping out and focusing on indie stuff more.
I literally cannot imagine creating something that is so incompetent, so shit and then using trans people as a shield to avoid taking responsibility for me delivering a shitty product.
Worst part is that I think it was almost deliberate. It just felt so hateful and like every decision was crafted to specifically hurt the fans and, as you say, gaslight them by accusing them of hating minority groups. So fucking disgusting. If you look at the teaser scene that was published way back before the game’s release, where Abby is getting hanged, she is suspiciously more feminine looking. Why did they change that? To piss off the gamers.
They also made every single ad seem like Ellie was on a revenge rampage because of Dina’s murder and that Joel was either going to join her or that his “ghost” would be by her side as her mental health tanks.
My friend and I had a lot of theories about the story of the game back when those teasers came out.
And then they go and create the most cruel, mean spirited murder scene of a beloved character that everybody already expected to get a send off in this game and afterwards they act smug and/or like victims when the fan reactions roll in.
They knew what they were doing. It was so gross. Joel’s murder was probably one of the most physically disturbed reactions I have jhad to a piece of media because it felt like personal hatred directed against the player. Like, where the fuck did that come from, asshole? All I ever did was enjoy your game.
Are there some asshole fans out there who fit the stereotype of a sexist gamer? Of course there are, but the vast majority of fans are just normal people whose only crime was to get invested in a story, a world and its characters and we all got punished for it.
To me, that is behavior from a creator that I will never support and too many creators in the hollywood/LA sphere have had this gross attitude towards fans for too long. When you treat an entire fan base with disgust because of what a small minority does, you are no longer a professional who deserves their time and money. It literally is the equivalent of going to a restaurant and the chef going up to your table and spitting in your food because he had a few shitty customers the other day. Like good fucking luck bringing new customers to your restaurant in the future.
Never played that game, what is the context?
Revenge bad
I recommend playing it before the context arrives
I immediately thought about this xd
It always pisses me off when someone defending their life, or the lives of others, in a show is somehow a monster for stopping the threat. (Or it is somehow ‘honorable’ to not kill someone actively murdering others.)
Fuck no. Stop the murderer, rapist, or terrorist using as much force as is necessary. Little Timmy will be so much better off with parents who are still alive, Susan will be happy her husband wasn’t murdered, etc etc.
But with the state monopoly on violence this becomes anti social thinking.
Only the state can do violence, and it must not be seen to be accountable to the people, so it cannot echo our aggregate morality.
