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[Doom85]

Really don't need a fucking essay to explain the obvious: it's a multiplayer game where one team of players plays the heroes and the other team plays the villains. So, pretty much most multiplayer games of this nature. I don't think Dead by Daylight is "normalizing" serial killers or some shit (and Freddy is a pedophile yet I don't remember any fuss about him being added to the game).

I will say I don't know if I agree with the OP's take on villains in fiction and their realism. Last time I checked, the real world has a decent amount of psychopaths or people who simply look out for #1. Yes, plenty of people guilty of horrible acts are more complicated than that, but that's hardly all of them, hell I'd question if they're even the majority. And villains can still be effective in fiction without a motivation. Michael Myers worked in the original Halloween movie due to the simple diagnosis, Loomis said Michael has no understanding of the moral implications of his actions, and thus Michael's disturbing view towards life makes his threat even greater. And then we have the Rob Zombie version which tacked on a generic 'my dad/sister/bullies/teacher were mean to me!" shit we've seen a ton of times and suddenly it all falls apart. Part of what made Michael frightening was there was zero evidence he could ever be reasoned with. If we see that he was actually driven to become what he is today, that indicates this is not the case and he becomes less intimidating as a result. This proves that not every antagonist needs to be overly complex, sometimes simpler is better.

Also, how does Flash Gordon's actions become meaningless? Saving innocent people doesn't count for anything if the threat doesn't have a complex psychology? That's.....a really weird take. Like, so the ending to Jurassic Park meant nothing? I mean, the threat was simply dinosaurs, their motivation was their basic instincts as animals, nothing more. So Dr. Grant watching out for the two kids throughout the movie is "meaningless"? Like, maybe you just worded that point really poorly or something, I dunno.

 

[strange headache]

Those experiences have given you a perspective that is counter to the typical more generalized understanding of the conflict during World War II. This is a good thing, but one that you should take into account as being the exception and not the rule when it comes to the player base of a multiplayer FPS game.

You're making a whole lot of baseless assumptions about gamers in order to justify your position. Do you really think that people who play multiplayer shooters are all stupid or what?

Really don't need a fucking essay to explain the obvious

Then don't f*cking read it, easy!
I'm sorry if I prefer to make long format comments, rather than spam the forum with numerous low effort posts.

Also, how does Flash Gordon's actions become meaningless? Saving innocent people doesn't count for anything if the threat doesn't have a complex psychology? That's.....a really weird take. Like, so the ending to Jurassic Park meant nothing? I mean, the threat was simply dinosaurs, their motivation was their basic instincts as animals, nothing more. So Dr. Grant watching out for the two kids throughout the movie is "meaningless"? Like, maybe you just worded that point really poorly or something, I dunno.

Dinosaurs are more akin to a force of nature, not rationally motivated actors. You don't identify with dinosaurs or a natural disaster in the same way as you identify with human characters. I'd say Michael Myers also falls into that category.

As such, you're comparing apples to oranges. And yes, I do believe that a cartoon-villain takes away from the hero's actions. The reason why the conflict between the Batman and Joker is so fascinating is because the antagonist reflects the hero in the sense that Batman's struggle against the Joker is also a struggle with himself and his own inner demons.

 

[Shai-Tan]

There was a good relevant article in the nyrb recently. Sadly it's up on paywall now:

It Can Happen Here | Cass R. Sunstein

Many accounts of the Nazi period depict a barely imaginable series of events, a nation gone mad. That makes it easy to take comfort in the thought that it can’t happen again. But some depictions of Hitler’s rise are more intimate and personal. They focus less on well-known leaders, significant...

www.nybooks.com

gist of it found in the top review here:

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45: Mayer, Milton, Evans, Richard J.: 9780226525839: Amazon.com: Books

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45 [Mayer, Milton, Evans, Richard J.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45

www.amazon.com

Even in all the turmoil, the poverty and the destruction of the post-war period, eight of his ten friends were unapologetic about their support for National Socialism. They remembered it as the best time of their lives, the time a "little guy" like them kept a job and even have money for a vacation now and again. Most were against the war, and very sorry about the whole genocide thing (but those Jews and Gypsies really did bring it on themselves), with one going as far as to blame all the Nazi bad deeds on Himmler. Hitler was just a fine chap who had nothing to do with it. He'd looked out for the "little man."

The book starts with the burning of the Marburg synagogue on Kristallnacht. One of Mayer's subjects, an elderly tailor who the author suspects lies to him, at least a little, spent three years in prison for the arson. Mayer sought to get to the root of why each of his ten friends joined the Nazi party. For some, it was a true belief, but others were so-called March Violets, latecomers to the party who joined when their victory was inevitable, and because everyone else did. For the schoolteacher, the most thoughtful and remorseful of all Mayer's subjects (and I would argue his favorite), it was a matter of keeping his job. He'd been a social democrat in another town and wanted to be above suspicion himself. But, even he admitted to enjoying the feeling of belonging and took pride in wearing the Nazi uniform.

What made the Nazis possible? Why didn’t anyone stop them?

With an eye on the current political situations in the US, Turkey, Russia, and China, Cass Sunstein reviews three books that shed

kottke.org

 

[joe_zazen]

Doom85

I think part of the issue is that you can get some really compelling drama with grey heroes and complex villains, which some internalise as ‘stories with those elements are ipso facto better than others.’ I like both, and don't want everything to be breaking bad, and sometimes love a nice self contained “1977 Star Wars” type story, with heroes and villains.

Further, fiction always simplifies, imposes artificial order, and—if it wants to be successful—plays to the prejudices of the audience. So it is never ‘realistic’.

 

[Saruhashi]

You are making the assumption that for the average american, the distinction between German soldier and nazi is a clear one. I get that you are educated enough to understand the difference and so the casual use of linking the two bothers you as you see it as just ignorant fear mongering, but you may want to consider what the experience for the typical player of this game will be. The situation for many people is going to be to think, "oh, this match, I'm the nazis." Not, "this match i'm a conscripted German who is ideologically opposed to the antisemitic leanings of the nazi party." Is it possible that you are refusing to see the situation through any lens other than that of your own life's experiences? Those experiences have given you a perspective that is counter to the typical more generalized understanding of the conflict during World War II. This is a good thing, but one that you should take into account as being the exception and not the rule when it comes to the player base of a multiplayer FPS game.

You say that I am stripping away context but I, personally, am not the one doing that. The context is already stripped by the game. What I am doing is taking that stripping to a more logical conclusion than everyone here that is assuming that players of these games are all history hobbiests that understand the nuances between being a German soldier vs. SS.

What I am saying is that, even in the in-game context, the player is only assuming the role of a front-line soldier.
So it's largely irrelevant if the player thinks "I'm on the Nazi side here" since they will still not be assuming any role other than just a soldier.
Like I said, I could see the argument if the game was more of a management sim or something along those lines.

The contradiction in your stance is that if the player is not a history hobbyist then things like going to a website and seeing iron crosses isn't going to be a sign that they should immediately leave because they won't know what the symbol means whether they have played the game or not.

Player A who knows nothing about Nazis and plays WW2 game and still knows nothing about Nazis is in the same spot as non-Player B who just doesn't know anything about Nazis. There must be a distinction then between "normalization" and "ignorance".

For me, normalizing would be that the player understands the Nazis and what they did and thinks that's no biggie because it's, well, perfectly normal.
Ignorance would be not knowing a thing about history.

The example in the video then is a kid of is too ignorant to know that swastikas and iron crosses are a warning sign. If they were normalized then the kid would KNOW what they mean but wouldn't care (or worse would openly support it).

Extra Credits makes no distinction because they are trying to push a point that they maybe didn't properly think through. I think the overwhelming negative reaction maybe does show that they misjudged this one.

Again, maybe a better approach from them would have been to put forward the idea that historical games have a duty to provide some kind of education on the historical period being portrayed. That still doesn't necessarily combat normalization but it does do something to maybe combat ignorance.


I wouldn't necessarily see it as fear mongering if the video were able to get over the hurdle of showing that WW2 games "normalize Nazis" and to what extent that normalization effect occurs and what the real life consequences are.

For example the original Medal of Honor was released in 1999 and it had multiplayer but I am not sure how that multiplayer was implemented.

That gives us at least 20 years of WW2 games to work with though so it should be easy to chart the normalization effect put forward by yourself and Extra Credits and show the extent and the impact of it.

What has changed now that 20 years later we are saying "enough is enough"? Can we demonstrate that the change is due to WW2 shooters? Did they play a minor role? A major role?

The whole thing feels like throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks.
"Stop Normalizing Nazis". Well it sounds pretty good and is pretty political so they decided to just run with it?

Is their thesis backed up by any solid research?

It comes across as a bit "Satanic Panic" with maybe a little bit more credibility since extremist neo-Nazi etc groups do exist.

 

[Saruhashi]

What does it mean to normalize Nazis?

I would assume that in a modern context it would be like you hear about a neo-Nazi rally in your city and you just think "huh, the Nazis are in town, I saw those guys in Battlefield V, maybe I'll attend".

With the rise of the far-right in Europe I think you could potentially say that some extreme ideas are in danger of becoming normalized but at the same time it seems to be not tolerated by normal people.

On a personal level it could be similar to something like having noisy neighbors. They are blasting music at 3am every Saturday but instead of confronting them and/or calling the cops you just say "meh" and eventually that becomes "must be 3am on Saturday cos there's the blasting music".

It's a tough one in this case because I think people tend to accuse others of using "dogwhistles" more than you'd see people openly promoting Nazis.
Even here you'd have to assume that having, for example, a swastika avatar would result in a permaban?

That's where I think the argument that these games "help normalize Nazis" falls flat. Nazis are not generally tolerated in normal day to day life.
Maybe 100 years of these kind of video games could change things but how would you know that it's not just down to the passage of time?

I think to drive the point home you'd need a few case studies at least of people who had no idea about any of this stuff, played PvP on a WW2 game for a while and then learned about that history and just felt like "meh, I don't see what the problem is with the Nazis to be honest that's my faction in BFV".

Otherwise it's just like a really flimsy theory that could probably actually be tied to more pressing issues such as whether or not games normalize violence in general.

 

[lukilladog]

I have evidence that playing with a faction of soldiers wont make it popular once kids grow up. These toys were very popular in a lot of countries a few decades ago, yet most people don´t sympathize... :

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

Even here you'd have to assume that having, for example, a swastika avatar would result in a permaban?

Why would a person have a swastika avatar again? I ask this as the dude that has two sunked personified WW2 Germany boats as an avatar.

think to drive the point home you'd need a few case studies at least of people who had no idea about any of this stuff, played PvP on a WW2 game for a while and then learned about that history and just felt like "meh, I don't see what the problem is with the Nazis to be honest that's my faction in BFV".

How do you not know about WW2 history? I'm assuming the youngest person playing said game is at least 12 and doesn't fall asleep in class. Extra Credit's video on this non-issue is so vapid I swear.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

It comes across as a bit "Satanic Panic" with maybe a little bit more credibility since extremist neo-Nazi etc groups do exist.

Satanic Panic is such a sexy myth that it has continued well on for decades. in truth there have never been satanic cults of the type promoted first by puritan activists in the 80s and now by tv/movie makers nowadays who think satanism is cool. i've done a lot of reading of the history of occult groups and none of them sacrifice babies or force sex or any of that shit, it is all propoganda, probably started thousands of years ago to demonize other cultures. IRL demonology consists of drawing symbols, doing astrology, experimenting with alchemy, cosplaying as wizards, doing weird (nonviolent) rituals, etc. all the True Detectives and Sabrina shows are 100% full of shit and peddling and ancient myth that has been used to kill many many people over the years. yet it persists. most people think Satanists sacrifice babies to demons or some bs.

so i can see how the marketing sexiness of a trope would override any need to approach it logically or with any historical fidelity. the fact that filmmakers & tv people constantly invoke Nazis to show how their poorly written villains are actually a deep political message is beyond pathetic. talk about the illiterate teaching the illiterate.

 

[Enjay]

Irrelevant news item and term due to everyone being called a nazi nowadays.

 

[HaveButOneLife]

Video games where you can play as Nazis doesn't magically make you a Nazi normalizer, it means you're part of a game based on history. We shouldn't be censoring swastikas.

 

[strange headache]

What has changed now that 20 years later we are saying "enough is enough"? Can we demonstrate that the change is due to WW2 shooters? Did they play a minor role? A major role?
Is their thesis backed up by any solid research?
It comes across as a bit "Satanic Panic" with maybe a little bit more credibility since extremist neo-Nazi etc groups do exist.

That's the rub isn't it?

Extra Credits are just throwing out a video with no basis in evidence. Polarization happens on both sides of the political spectrum, so should we ban games like C&C where you can play as the communists too? They just assume that WW2 shooters make Nazism socially acceptable, but they give their audience no empirical or objective mean to verify their claim. It's pure opinionated conjecture and as it stands, it amounts to nothing more than scaremongering.

Furthermore, their whole argument hinges upon the assumption that gamers exist in an educational vacuum, which is demonstrably false:

Gamers are more likely to consider family a top priority than non-gamers (82% vs 68%) as well as placing a high importance on friends (57% vs 35%). Gamers and their parents are also more likely to have been college educated (43% and 52%, respectively) than non-gamers and their parents (36% and 37%, respectively).

When it comes to their occupation, 67% of gamers feel positive about their aspirations, while only 42% of non-gamers feel the same way. Gamers are also more likely to be employed full time than those who don’t partake in games (42% vs 39%). Sixty-one percent of gamers would describe themselves as natural leaders, compared to 35% of non-gamers.

It seems to me as if gamers have an above-average education, so it's really no wonder they react negatively to somebody trying to infantilize them by being told that "Nazis are bad". Judging by their twitter wall, I'd say most of them are way smarter than Extra Credit's communications manager.

 

[Raven117]

yes i think the othering is a dangerous thing. making them seem Inherently Evil is pretty bad. there were historical, social, political reasons for why the Nazi regime and Hitler rose to power, and every time people use those terms to describe, for instance people that make youtube videos, it spreads ignorance.


here is where the entire thing falls apart. media wants to have Nazis as cartoon enemies, yet they also want to indulge in sentimentalizing. as if the idea that Hitler hesitated before ordering Kristallnacht, as if that would excuse his crime. or if we saw him having a rough night's sleep, tossing and turning, as if that would humanize him for us. yes, you can tell that story, but to what end?

ditto for Kylo Ren, who tortures people, kills villagers, oversees the destruction of trillions, yet people are openly hoping he gets redemption bc there are worse bad guys out there. why? because he is deep! he is emotional! see how he slams his helmet into a wall! emotions! it's amazing & kind of scary how far mass audiences can be manipulated.

Thanos is emotionally vulnerable the same way anyone is, i'm sure Hitler had a puppy he cared for, but that does not excuse his actions, nor does pointing out that he is human add any "complexity" to him. in many ways i think the humanizing of villians like Thanos is a reaction to the cartoonifying. filmmakers want to seem clever, look how deep we are being, yet nothing is interrogated with any seriousness. Thanos's emotions are contained in one convenient scene and only when they are required for something he wants. this is fake depth, probably just as harmful as fake cartoon logic.

Okay, without reading most of your post. Let’s get one thing straight. Two of those are not real characters. We allow ourselves to be manipulated for the story. It’s a whole lot different in real life so let’s not go too far down that path.

 

[Kadayi]

Well done Strange for posting about this. I saw that sorry excuse for a video and I was

About Extra Credits (although to be fair I think they've been going that way for a while).

I think that there's actually kind of worrisome about what they are saying tbh underneath the fearmongering. Because they're all for 'unpersoning' your opponents so to speak (obv not always applicable in all cases). It's kind of getting into that whole 'It's ok to Punch Nazi's because they're Nazi's' line of thinking, which smacks of a zealotry of mindset.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

Satanic Panic is such a sexy myth that it has continued well on for decades.

There were actual cults murdering people in the late 80s around the southern border of Texas. They were literal Satan worshippers and drug runner.

 

[Ixiah]

So, every Butcher is a potential Serial Killer ?
After all, they are exposed to an Enviroment that "normalizes" Murder....
God, what a bunch of fucking Idiots, they think they get a Medal simply because they demand something has to be done about an imaginary Problem.

 

[spandexmonkey]

Just adding that the iron cross is not necessarily a nazi symbol in the US if it doesn't include a swastika on it.

Iron Cross

Learn how white supremacists adopted the neo-Nazi Iron Cross, and the new meanings (both positive and negative) that came from the new adaptation.

www.adl.org

I see it used a lot by non-hateful sources, like Triple H in WWE.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

There were actual cults murdering people in the late 80s around the southern border of Texas. They were literal Satan worshippers and drug runner.

drug traffickers typically do violent shit. no reason to think this was driven by satanism any more than by violent drug culture.

Next up for Waititi is Jojo Rabbit, a unique Nazi-era satire he directed for Fox Searchlight, which opens Oct. 18. Scarlett Johansson stars in the picture alongside Waititi, who portrays a boy's imaginary version of Adolf Hitler.

Taika Waititi to Direct 'Thor 4' (Exclusive)

Meanwhile, development concerns force Warners to push back 'Akira.'

www.hollywoodreporter.com

??? oh look comedy Nazis are all the rage

 

[dave_d]

That's the irony of this whole thing. SJWs think the general audience are a bunch of idiots who don't know any better. And it's their job to 'educate' the unwashed masses and cure them of their ignorance. But this episode with ExtraCredits just proves that they don't know shit, and the general audience are much more savvy than they give them credit for.

I pretty much knew that when they tried to explain quantum entanglement and messed up so badly they thought it implied stuff like FTL communication was possible and causality was questionable. (No and no)

 

[dave_d]

Normally I don't care for this shit but as a German, I kinda feel offended. Playing as "the Nazis" is more often then not playing as the Wehrmacht and not as SS Obersturmbannführer Judenschreck. That's, at least in my view, a big difference.

IMO it's the same as saying playing an American soldier in the Vietnam war is wrong. Don't know...this topic confuses me.

I had a problem with the idea of "Well the Nazis are the bad guys and the allies are the good guys" since as you say most German soldiers weren't Nazis. (Yes I know they covered it badly.) The Allies are the good guys? You mean the Russians who did most of the fighting in Europe but initially invaded Scandinavia when they had their pact with Hitler? Are they the good guys when they were committing their own atrocities like rape or sending the vast majority of captured German soldiers to POW camps? Of course then there the case of were the Americans and British still good guys when they'd send out hunting teams to execute suspected Nazis and Werewolf members?

I also had a problem with saying terrorists are the "evil" side. I mean I'm an American an all but I get that terrorism and insurgency are warfare done on the cheap. So I'm a good guy because my government can afford expensive weapons and you are a bad guy because you can't?