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Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

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Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#281

Post by BlueTemplar »

mwfunk wrote: post #239
quietbritishjim wrote: post #6

> > Inspired by historical events and characters, this work of fiction was designed, developed, and produced by a multicultural team of various beliefs, sexual orientations and gender identities. > This statement is making ... implicit [claims] (our diverse team means this game was produced in a careful, sensitive way) Ah, I think that's a misunderstanding of why the statement is there. It's not to claim that the gam…

Seriously, do people not remember that this statement was first made for the first game, in 2007, at a time when so much of what was in the game could've been a political lightning rod? You're playing someone from an organization that was historically associated with Islam, going around killing Crusaders (and everyone else, but still) in the Middle East during the Middle Ages. This was the time of the 2nd Bush admini…

Heh, reminds me of :

Hail Caesar! Rabbi and Priests :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJEiDRi4Itc

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#282

Post by BlueTemplar »

Fnoord wrote: post #131
narrator wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past… The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the mind…

> Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past… [...] As quoted in the original Command & Conquer!

They had an actual time machine though, didn't they ?

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#283

Post by stale2002 »

konjin wrote: post #97
boudewijnrempt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a player you cannot do _anything whatsoever_ to change the setting and rules of the game: you cannot be nicer or less nice to the indigenous people, you have to loot and destroy their religious centers, you have endure having their religion mocked by your compatriots, you cannot convert to the local religion... You have to play a Aryan colonial invader who disdains the local culture and religion because your own c…

The Norse are not Aryans. The Aryans were nomadic horse tribes who lived some 3000 years before the game started and were closer to the Mongols than anyone of recent memory.

In modern day society, the term "Aryan" has a different meaning than what you use.

Most people full understand what people are trying to say, when they use that word.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#284

Post by stale2002 »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #103
enkid wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is dangerous stuff. What if there was an Assassin's Creed that showed slavery in a positive light? Or the glory of killing Rightists in China in the 50s? Or Turks killing Armenians in 1918? People might look into it, but a lot of people are going to take it at face value and even if they do look it up, there initial exposure is going to color their expectations.

Then don’t take your ethical values from video games? This Puritanization of all art and entertainment is disturbing.

> Then don’t take your ethical values from video games? This Puritanization of all art and entertainment is disturbing.

The point is more that the game developers were trying to whitewash and "purify" the game, and that these efforts results in a worse game, that is less accurate, and also problematic.

If you are upset about the PC police causing problems in your video games, then you should be mad at the game developers for their decisions to do that.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#285

Post by BlueTemplar »

AniseAbyss wrote: post #223
sergj wrote: post #3

This is the problem with historic games. Either you acknowledge the bad and good things, or you white wash the past. As the author notes at the end: „As I have argued here many times, fiction is often how the public conceptualizes the past and that concept of the past shapes the decisions we make in the present.“

An historically accurate game isn't much fun. For one you can't play as a female protagonist. Videogames can be an inspiration for someone to read up on the real history so its not all bad.

TIL that South Park™: The Fractured But Whole is an historically accurate game :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1EbPpyq91U

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#286

Post by megameter »

frazbin wrote: post #230

This is a pretty high effort article, let's take a deep breath. I enjoyed it because it uses Assassin's Creed as a lense to teach us a bit about history. No culture war related baggage is required for admission into this article IMO; the narrative compromises necessary to make a playable game out of a 9th century setting are kind of hilarious, and this article helped me process the cognitive dissonance that comes fro…

This kind of sensitivity/accuracy issue and how it relates to culture broadly is one of those things inherent to fiction that isn't necessarily obvious when you experience it, but looms ever-larger as you get deeper into crafting it. At first you're OK with putting throwaway stereotypes in your work, and then you start thinking, "well, why?" Because if you don't take the question head-on, you aren't going to craft something coherent and directed towards a point or a purpose. And asking that that can lead you towards an elaborate justification, to some kind of critique, or to a nihilistic dismissal.

And while that can feed into culture wars issues, and popular works often arrive at the right time to be a lightning rod for them, it's equally often a case of "the real point being made is going to be esoteric anyway and only a fraction of the audience will work at understanding it properly." Especially with big productions like AAA video games, the prioritization is on rushing to produce big spectacles, and a majority of the production effort goes to the technical part of that, while the concept is kept to something easily described in blunt shorthand: "you get to play as a Viking and pillage the British." And it's like, oh, okay, gotta live up to the audience expectations here, make it a fun thrill ride with a happy ending, let's ignore the implications. The novel stuff and minority views usually can't get represented in such productions for structural reasons.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#287

Post by BlueTemplar »

kemayo wrote: post #215
himinlomax wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is a fine argument as long as your game actually is historically accurate See, that makes some sense if you're doing high fantasy and shit that's set in a wholly fictional world. But just because some parts of a game are not realistic does not mean you should just forget about even trying. It makes no sense. > If your samurai game includes werewolves and machine guns you don't get to turn around say you didn't…

> but if the setting is the middle Ages it would be just stupid and lazy -- UNLESS there is some effort to bring some lore into it. The article we're commenting on does make the point that people of African / Asian descent being present in middle-ages Europe isn't unreasonable: "I will say that, as travelers and traders, it is not crazy that people with these backgrounds might be in England, even in the ninth century…

I'm not too familiar with that period, but North African probably doesn't mean 'black' ?

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#288

Post by phaemon »

robteix wrote: post #257
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Americans don't have anything against the Russians yet they seem to be the default bad guys in a lot of our fictional entertainment. And you need to do some reading up on Canadian history. French Canada doesn't like the rest of Canada and vise versa. But the animosity extends in part to the European counterparts. You seem to think I think the Ubisoft employees are seething with hatred for the English. I don't. I…

> French Canada doesn't like the rest of Canada and vise versa. Please stop these generalizations that are borderline racist. I personally have nothing against the English, for example. If you hate us so much, that's on you. Go watch, say, The Last Kingdom on Netflix. It wasn't made by Ubisoft or French Canadians. And yet the depiction of English vs Danes is pretty much the same: the cowardly christians with their si…

That's just nonsense. The Last Kingdom literally includes every element that the article complains is missing from the game.

Cornwell certainly has an anti Christian bent, but he at least tries to compensate with some relatable characters (Leofric for example).

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#289

Post by BlueTemplar »

forest_dweller wrote: post #74
hackerbabz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No because I’m white and I can play a million games with white protagonists. I don’t need to be included in every game. If I were nonwhite I think I’d want to be included in some games, yes.

There are loads of games with characters from every corner of the planet as playable characters. Why do people always pretend they don't exist? Just having a cursory look over my collection on steam: * Streets of Rage had black, white, asian, men and women. * Street Fighter had every nationality on earth represented. * Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Almost all the characters were black. * Grand Theft Auto V - One of…

> nobody cares about this shit in Europe btw because our identities are based on our nationality

This seems to be changing : in France young Muslims are now placing Sharia above the secular law :

https://www.marianne.net/societe/laicite-et-religions/des-fr...

Note that the USA (and European Union, and of course the Muslim countries) are blamed for the dissemination of this dominant communitarian model.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#290

Post by crocodiletears »

torginus wrote: post #37

Vikings invade England, pillage and massacre the English, yet they are still seen as the good guys. I wonder if the people who made this game have some historical resentment towards the English.

Ubisoft is French…
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