On the one hand it's an inspiring story of hope and escapist fantasy to cling to for members of the underclass who have never seen power wielded other than to oppress etc etc etc On the other hand, it's *fucked up*
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Replying to @arthur_affect @loudpenitent and
It's inspiring TO YOU, if you're in the implied audience and the story is told in such a way that you easily identify with the guy If not -- if you're, say, a foreigner who can't help but see Superman as an American symbol -- it's pretty fucking scary to see that thought process
1 reply 1 retweet 18 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @loudpenitent and
"Of COURSE I'm the good guy Of COURSE I'm the one who can be trusted with nuclear bombs If I weren't the one with the right to have nukes, then how come I AM the one who has nukes, huh?" (This is literally the message of The Incredibles and that's also fucked up)
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Replying to @arthur_affect @loudpenitent and
I mean in the case of Orwell's take on King Lear, the tragedy here is simple Lear wants to have his cake and eat it too He wants to magnanimously give away his power and retire He also gets mad when the people he gives his power to start using it against him
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Replying to @arthur_affect @loudpenitent and
Well, don't give it away then You could've prevented this whole thing by just not doing that If you don't want people to do things to you against your will, don't give up your power That's what "power" means
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Replying to @arthur_affect @loudpenitent and
People want to be *proven right* when they do things out of principle, they engage in a certain degree of magical thinking You leave your door unlocked and some primitive part of your brain thinks that by doing so, you will inspire people to be good and not break into your house
3 replies 3 retweets 18 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @loudpenitent and
But that's not what having principles actually means If you really have principles, you have to prepare that those principles will fail in the material world If you really decide to trust someone, you have decided to allow that person to harm you
3 replies 3 retweets 20 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @loudpenitent and
That's the tragic sense of life, that good deeds are punished If you actually want to be sure that people don't come into your house, then you have to lock your door, and put up a fence You don't actually get to have both
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Replying to @arthur_affect @loudpenitent and
Sometimes, you have to accept that sticking to your principles will harm you, and stick to those principles anyway and accept the harm Or decide the harm is not worth it, and abandon those principles, and be a less principled person but a safer one Either one is tragic
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Replying to @arthur_affect @loudpenitent and
But it's the reality And the sense of "agency" games as a medium foster is *terrible* for really telling stories about tragic choices, or, having told those stories, getting people to accept them instead of throwing the controller at the screen
3 replies 3 retweets 13 likes
Worst thing you can do is to program a King Lear game where you're Cordelia, and the point of the game is you stay true to your principles and therefore you die Gotta program in a Golden Ending where if you're EVEN MORE true to your principles you live and they bake you a cake
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Replying to @arthur_affect @loudpenitent and
People have been trying, for a long time, to engage the "tragic sense of life" in gaming, to really set up a situation where "If you do the right thing, you lose the game, if you give in and do the wrong thing, you win" There's always resistance, people never like it
1 reply 2 retweets 12 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @loudpenitent and
The author of the OP article would almost certainly call such a situation "moral grayness", even though it isn't really that at all It's not morally gray to show the world being destroyed because someone wouldn't betray their own family
2 replies 1 retweet 9 likes - Show replies
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