Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

Well there's the controversial plot point of Barrett looking for alternatives to Mako energy like oil to help rebuild society because they need something to fuel their machines and houses.

Yeah.... you can see why that's a really dumb writing decision on Square's part. It was covered in the supplementary books.

I mean... You kinda have to. Bit of a necessary evil. So long as they figure out non fossil fuels afterwards it's not the end of the world.

It is still ironic given Mako as a fossil fuel/climate change analogue. One with more immediate drawbacks.

Granted you can say that is a double-edged flaw of oil allegories with more immediate potential for disaster.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Mar 28th 2024 at 8:06:49 AM

and Yeah, which is why President Shinra's speech to Barrett hits hard because the world needs energy for it's society even if it drains the planet.

Even if it's oil or mako, it matters very little as those are still non-renewable resources so the story is kind of shooting itself in the foot here.

Guess it couldn't ultimately practice what it preached, but I imagine this is why the writers had Sephiroth overtake the whole Shinra plot since he's a bad guy that's has far less moral ambiguously to defeat.

And he also takes down most of Shinra, it's not Avalanche who defeated Shinra, it's Sephiroth. Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work indeed.

We can't have Tifa think more about depriving families of their income as a result of terrorism.

I mean, comparing mako to fossil fuels, the latter at worst are gonna affect the biosphere for a bit (in geologic time) but the planet's gonna be fine even if humans fuck up hard enough to go extinct. Mako is the magical lifeblood of the planet, fucking with that is bound to be magnitudes worse than any fossil fuel could ever be.

Yeah I get that, but remember, Mako energy is at least arguably a metaphor for non-renewable energy resources.

So replacing Mako with actual non-renewable resources like oil is damaging the message there.

Fossil fuel is also not gonna like...cause an OMEGA WEAPON situation in the short term. Dirge of Cerberus isn't very good, but like, it's pretty directly stated that if the Mako reactors had kept going, the Planet would have created OMEGA WEAPON and just sucked the lifestream out of the planet and would have taken it to another planet, killing everyone in the process. And no one would have expected it or would have been able to stop it, while in Dirge of Cerberus, it was only stopped because it was deliberately triggered and the process meant it would show up at a specific time and it was being controlled by someone who wasn't the Planet.

There's also, uh, the question of if non-Cetra are actually connected to the lifestream or not, given the weird teases that non-Cetra humanity in FFVII might ultimately be from Spira, which had a weird fucked up as hell version of the Lifestream.

Edited by Zendervai on Mar 28th 2024 at 11:41:57 AM

I still don't get why FF X-2 went in that direction.

I like X-2 but it is super weird that they were like, "One of our likable goofy protag characters is the guy who built the evil planet-killing megacorp from that other game that was not, until this very moment, in any way associated with this one. Look, he wants to harvest mako energy! Isn't that so quirky?"

It's like doing a Battlestar Galactica arc where one of the protagonist crew suddenly reveals he's inventing the Sith Order.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 28th 2024 at 10:19:43 AM

It wasn't even something explicitly stated in the game, just one of the guides. So you could have easily never have learned about it.

Then the remake added in a pic of him in the Shinra building so what the hell I guess.

But back on topic, yeah extracting Mako isn't exactly the same as oil but thematically it's intended as a metaphor for it, so the story still shoots itself in the foot aesop wise by having society rebuild itself on oil.

And what the hell would happen in-universe when that stuff runs out, hmmmm? Go back to Mako energy then?

Edited by RedHunter543 on Mar 29th 2024 at 12:24:40 AM

Probably nuclear energy. Or a heavy focus on renewables.

It's never really made that clear, but I got the impression that the world in FFVII just kinda skipped over everything between rudimentary water power and high technology given how uneven everything is across the planet. The first town you reach outside Midgard certainly doesn't have a Mako reactor and seems pretty Renaissance level in terms of tech.

Oil is just the easy option, but like, I wouldn't be surprised if Costa del Sol developed solar or tidal power, for example.

FFIX at least is like "fuck, turns out using the Mist for power is really, really bad" and then it becomes inaccessible so that going back to it isn't an option.

Edited by Zendervai on Mar 28th 2024 at 12:31:02 PM

Plus, the mist in IX was also specifically designed to disrupt the people by Garland to speed up the plan to replace the souls of Gaia with Terra.

So it's extra better they stop using the stuff. That explains why there are so many wars in the lore.

EDIT: Funnily enough, I've read discussions that Mako is also a metaphor for Nuclear energy.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Mar 29th 2024 at 12:34:48 AM

Eh if it's because it's bad for the body that goes for 90% of fuel resources honestly. Coal and oil aren't exactly healthy to take a bath in either.

Well consider mako reactors, and that mako is refined to make weapons as well.

Puts a dark spin on Yuffie's obsession with them.

EDIT: Heck, now that I think about it, if Mako was intended as a metaphor for Nuclear energy, it would explain the oil thing.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Mar 29th 2024 at 12:48:43 AM

I mean, most of that seems to be that if a mako reactor goes critical, it's a huge explosion.

There is a certain duality in nuclear energy as weapons and fuel sources that sets it apart from oil.

Plus it's also available in rock form via materia.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and we shouldn't forget that mako poisoning is the exact term used when being exposed to too much mako.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Mar 29th 2024 at 1:14:38 AM

In general, outside the FF's example, my personal opinion is that is illogical to portray mooks sympathetically in comparison to the Big Bad, except in cases when they are mind-controlled slaves or something like this.

..........................

If I am serving in the Evil Overlord army as a soldier and partake in Rape, Pillage, and Burn, in order for the Overlord to Take Over the World, then I am just as bad as the Evil Overlord.

The fact that I may be just a weakling compared to the Big Bad, doesn't make me sympathetic.

Nor is Just Following Orders  or "I do that to pay for my rent" an acceptable excuse.

..........................

In fact, the Big Bad can have some Well-Intentioned Extremist motivations, or at least capture the audience's respect with his cunning, power and grandiose ambitions, unlike mook number 548727 who is killing and torturing innocents for some gold , his sadistic pleasure and because he was told so.

..........................

Another complaint, I see, is:

 "The Hero killed 100 mooks, then when he fought the Big Bad he spared him, and you call that heroic?"

This complaint usually ignores the fact that the villain surrendered to the hero, while the mooks didn't, and in the case when they do, a good hero actually does spare them.

Edited by jawal on Mar 28th 2024 at 8:21:37 AM

Aren't conscripted soldiers generally more cruel to POWs and non-combatants.

Edited by Kaiseror on Mar 28th 2024 at 5:27:57 AM

That works from an in-universe perspective, but out of universe it’s a writing decision to never have moons surrender but have the villain surrender. Mooks would be more likely to surrender as they have less invested in the villain’s scheme, would face lighter punishment as they’ll have committed lesser crimes, and are less likely to have a personal grudge against the hero.

Iron Man 3 got it right with the mook who went “I don’t even like working here, they are so weird” and left rather than trying to fight a superhero with a pistol.

I have no idea what you’re talking about. *whistles innocently*

Edited by Silasw on Mar 28th 2024 at 9:47:08 AM

Actually, it's Iron Man 3.

(Dont know if the theme move out since I didnt have internet for a day or two, ether way, here it is).

The issue with jedi is like super hero, they have a sort of mandate efect of being always lawfull good, any jedi who go to far just stop being a jedi and become ether grey jedi(old canon), a dark jedi or become a sith.

It one of the thing in that star wars have a white and black morality that is not just in chararter but in metaphysic, jedi are good and sith are bad and the force respond in kind. You can have tragic sith like vader and somewhat questionable jedi but only to that.

So I think the issue is the discussion of "how WRONG the jedi were with the republic" get repeat a few times.

Like the prequels want yout o know they have being wrong, hell Yoda wanted luke to kill vader and he didnt. so we cant just said "Jedi did not wrong" but how exactly and how to pin point have being a point of discussion.

With Mooks, I'd argue it's a case of Nothing Personal. Their individual morality is essentially irrelevant: they are fighting for the Big Bad at least in a professional capacity, and they are consequently legitimate targets for violence by the part of the "good guys" on the field of battle.

I will also say that it's not implausible the average soldier of an evil regime would tend to be evil. If you're fighting in organization that advances an evil cause, and you believe in that cause, that kind of makes you evil on some level.

It's also not too implausible that war crimes would be highly endemic in the military of an evil regime.

Nazis used to be a non controversial bad guy for this reason. Everyone could agree it was fine to kill them by the droves.

At least until fascism made a comeback. I still cringe remembering when a Wolfenstein game got backlash for having us shoot Nazis.

The right move will be to be allowed to kill nazis even harder and never stop reminding them how much they suck.

Edited by Blueace on Mar 28th 2024 at 10:35:17 AM

I recall metal gear rising had the plot of Raiden considering the unnamed mooks to have properly chosen to work for an evil PMC and mowed them down every level until one level Sam has him reading the minds of the people he was killing causing him to have a mental breakdown and deciding to stop claiming in moral highground in killing them, but continuing to kill them anyways as he slips back into his ripper persona. Though the mooks that Raiden was killing during his breakdown were doing the job of law enforcement in the US, even if under the same PMC, so those specific mooks of that level may have more sympathetic motives than the ones who were engaged in the other levels where they were either helping in the brain harvesting of children or supporting war and instability in other nations.