Im feeling this way while playing AC Shadows. I just killed two dozen guys to get to a dude I decided to spare
Batman is super full of shit in this department
Batman allow innocent to be harmed just so he can uphold his moral high ground.
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
If you missed 69420, don’t worry about it, because 69422 is 69420, too.
I have no idea why Jedi Survivor decided to do that with one random empire guy.
Everybody else got their fucking arms and legs cut off.
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.
Hell, he fought Ozai while in the Avatar state. Maybe he should have just “accidentally” killed Ozai while in the Avatar state
Remember that he didn’t just enter the avatar state during the northern water tribe attack, he spiritually fused with the raging ocean spirit. I feel like that gives him a bit more moral innocence than just straight up killing people on his own. It’s also worth noting he almost did exactly this. After smacking his back on the rock and reawakening his avatar state, he barely regained control before straight up killing Ozai.
That said… I actually hate the way he solved his unwillingness to kill the fire lord. An entire season of struggling over it and then suddenly some deus ex machina lion turtle pops up out of nowhere with no foreshadowing and just gives him the answer right before the final fight. Super lame and unearned ending to his moral struggle imo.
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.
Yeah, but she’s forgetting about Aang’s cultural duty to his people. He’s the last Air Nomad. If Aang intentionally takes a life, then that cultural aspect of the Air Nomads is dead forever in his eyes.
She also didn’t know he’d magically find a magical being that would give him to power to permanently strip Ozai of his powers.
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…
Aang is carrying an entire culture on his back. If he loses his way as an Air Nomad, then the genocide of his people is complete, and the world will never again be restored to balance.
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. 🤦♂️ ::
wrong bracket in the Link.
Also: good writeup, I like it :)
Thanks! Fixed.
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.
Did Elon make this meme? Needs not cringe
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.
Yeah, but Steven and Marc haven’t reached that point in their character development yet. They don’t fully understand who they are and what Moon Knight is. They don’t know about Jake. Jake does kill people in cold blood. The implication is that in season 2, Steven and Marc will have to come to terms with that, just as they both came to terms with each other. This is an origin story.
They should have made a show about a different character. They did Moon Knight wrong.
Not many Marvel superheroes with schizophrenia and DID. I value the show because of the representation. I’ve never seen such a good depiction of plurality on TV. And I’m also a fan of Moon Knight in the comics. My favourite run is From The Dead. I love the sass with which he informs the somnologist that a Paladin of Khonsu is well qualified to treat dream problems.
It still suffers from the issue this post is talking about. I’m not telling anyone not to like it, there was a lot of good things going on with it but the kaiju battle and not killing the big bad after slaughtering a ton of henchmen was a bridge too far for me.
Movies that are just about punching the bad guy are boring. Like Man Of Steel. Snyder failed to connect the character themes and drama to the action in a meaningful way.
Seeing Marc, Steven, and Jake grapple with how to oppose Amit’s ideology, and disagree, is great. Steven and Marc are broken, foolish men. But they have ideals and values. They think the only way to defeat Amit ideologically is to make a stand against killing bad people. I mean, she’s a god. She gets stronger when people follow her ideology. Steven and Marc think the answer is to find a way to disable the enemy without killing, and thereby prove Amit’s ideology wrong and weaken her.
And Jake doesn’t give a fuck, like the more traditional depictions of Moon Knight.
I want to see a season 2 where the three come to understand one another, and where these religious questions are grappled with on a deeper level. As you say, killing bad people isn’t always wrong. Perhaps they could have a discussion about how the pantheon exists for a reason, and you can’t just destroy one of your gods with no consequences. Killing bad people has its place, the problem is just that Amit wanted to be too powerful.
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.
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
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.
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.
There is actually a youtube channel called “Dhar Mann” filled with stupid scenarios and end with the moral “So you see, this is why you don’t treat the poor-looking guy badly… because he might be secretly rich and was about to give you a big tip on the bill”. Not because you should have common decency, but because “he might be a secret rich person” 🤦♂️
You’re gonna die laughing of the cringe if you ever watch those videos 🤣
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.
Nah it’s just shit writing. Occam’s razor and all that.
I get the vague impression that this is meant to subtly influence western society into believing that the masses aren’t truly people,
Well, people can think two things at once. And whilst people may think that non-fleshed out nameless movie henchmen “aren’t truly people”, I don’t think they apply the same standard to random people irl.
The abundance of people voting against their interests around the world, both historically and presently, seemingly solely to spite a specific group, was what initially spurred the thought. There has to be dehumanization at some step in the process and something to spur and reinforce it.
Do I believe that terribly written media is the sole impetus for the US falling apart? No. But I do see symptoms in random places.
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.”
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.”
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.
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!”
That quote reminded me heavily of Dishonored. As much as I love the game, they punish you with a bad ending for killing people and using all the cool powers provided to you, which I can concede that it is kinda dumb.
Ohh i do hate that. I don’t remember if 1 did it but they will change the hostility of people toward other NPC when you’re in high chaos in 2. Like in low chaos the npc would be nice to each other and talk about getting out of karnaca, but in high chaos the dialog changed and they straight up murder their friend. It’s unsettling that the dev basically blame you for the change of their action.
DOTO fixed this for me. I can chose whether to kill or not to based on my situation, not the ending and invisible system.
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.
Trevor scares me. He feel so real.
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.
Claims moral superiority for never buying the game and instead buying Factorio
I feed these bugs tasty stuff that makes them grow big and strong and how do they thank me!? They break the machines that make them the stuff.
So what if I burned their forests to the ground, built autoturrets right outside their homes, ran them over with tanks and rained hellfire down on them just to test my fancy new artillery?
They’re the real monsters here
If they’re r strategists, that was just good neitzschean nurturing.
Wow! I was the good guy all along!*
*Except on Nauvis
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.
As much a commentary on the complicity if the general culture and specific medium it comes from as the military type guy you’re playing.
One of my favorite aspects is the way the ludonarrative/gameplay ties with the story.
spoiler
The enemies start showing up in unrealistic numbers, one of your dead squad mates shows up as some kind of mutated monster - it feels like the classic escalation in difficulty because you are playing a video game. But this is happening because your character is delusional and perceives it that way.
I’ve always wanted to teach a high school/community college elective where we read Heart of Darkness, watched Apocalypse Now and played Spec Ops - to see how the same narratives in themes are used in entirely different settings and with different methods of storytelling, but how ultimately they all reach towards the same message about humanity and war and cruelty.
The older Call of Duty’s (maybe the newer ones, haven’t played since Black Ops one) often had messages/quotes that were pretty anti war when you died, but were ultimately sabotaged by the story. Spec Ops is probably the best game at understanding how to use the FPS mechanics as part of its storytelling.
Sooooort of. I read ‘heart of darkness’ when i was way too young, but ‘apocalypse now’ and ‘spec ops: the line’, while similar, are clearly biting at different targets.
Where the central theme of ‘apocalypse now’ might read as ‘there is no civilized war, it is only ever madness, and to believe otherwise is not only madness, but incompetence. You play as children at heroism, and it is a lie. There are no heroes here. Not on your side, at least.’
‘Spec ops: the line’ could be read as ‘what the fuck is erong with you people? Why do you even do this? What the fuck is even in it for you?’ With literally the first scene being the implicit ‘you’ve heard this story before, we both know you have, no part of this is new to you. so why the fuck are you so god damn stubborn about not fucking getting it?’ Scolding less the pissed off 19 year olds who do the atrocities, and more the entire society that keeps allowing them to be so staggeringly violently stupid.
“You’re still a good person.”
I feel like the questions you have about my loading screen text are all answered by my loading screen text.
Legacy of Kain: Defiance handled that concept much better.
Haven’t played that game, but I will take your word for it!
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.
