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

In the first game but the Nazi stand-ins are taking over the country in 2.

But I don't think anyone corresponds well.

The GLA are closer to reactionary religious fanatics than Nazis. Their methods (ethnic cleansing during an uprising as opposed to taking over first) are different as well.

The fourth game does a fairly good job of portraying the Alliance nations as fairly okay dudes. Not very sympathetic, but you can see they're just doing what they know rather than being evil dicks for the hell of it.

As for the Empire, they basically hold the Villain Ball so tight you have to wonder if someone used super-glue on it. Nazi Germany with the serial numbers filed off - just look at the uniforms!

And the Gallians mostly come off as hypocrites to me if nothing else. They're frankly despicable, and by the time the first game was done, I was wondering why the heck I was playing as the Villain Protagonist.

They don't care that a million of their soldiers got blown to pieces by a unstable superweapon - they're upset the unstable superweapon blew up. Because Uniqueness Value.

They don't care that their own fucking country is so twisted that it doesn't allow Darcsens to live peacefully and with dignity - the implication is that the Darcsens should be grateful they're not in death camps already.

They care for one silly girl who is a tank driver and whose sniping is made a big deal of, but not for the soldiers who have died fighting for their country having suffered far worse, simply because "The Militia is Special".

They don't care that the man who sniped the Dormant Valkyria practicaly saved his country from extinction. No sir, they're upset he sniped her, again because Uniqueness Value. He himself complains about being made the Designated Villain, because he knows (as does the viewer) that he did the absolute right thing. Guy should have been given a medal, not how he was treated - but hey, no one said the Gallians have a lick of common sense.

The third game made it crystal clear that they're just as bad as the Empire - they just hide it better. The Unit in the third game is mostly people who got dealt a shitty hand in Gallia (which operates on Tall Poppy Syndrome) and who are forever reviled because they dared to think different.

The Gallians make my skin crawl - self-righteous hypocrisy with tunnel-vision. Bad as the Empire and the Alliance are, they make no bones about what they're doing.

The backstory is also disturbing - the Valkyrur were a Master Race that caused a whole load of atrocities and scapegoated the Darcsens for it, effectively making them the Designated Villain for most of the world for a long time, which is all sorts of Unfortunate Implications, cranked up to infinity when it's stated that they came from the North and were the progenitors of all "civilized" peoples in the setting.

And note that despite the inherent evil of all of this, Valkyrur are still portrayed as heroic. That should tell you everything you need to know.

Edited by TechPriest90 on Jun 26th 2019 at 5:32:33 AM

Tolkien's Legendarium is notoriously unfinished, and there doesn't seem to be any more to the Petty Dwarves. I don't think there's much more to it than a fatal and tragic misunderstanding at the first contact point between two races - the Sindar backed off once the Dwarves of Belegost and Nogrod made contact and the realised they were dealing with other sapient beings.

I'm also feeling like a colossal idiot after realising that the Charles Phipps posting here is the Charles T. Phipps. The writer of the Agent G series.

You Magnificent Bastard, I Read Your Books!

Edited by TechPriest90 on Jun 26th 2019 at 6:12:41 AM

Well, yeah. His current profile pic is even the cover of one of his works. It's self-promotion.

Awesome! I hope you enjoyed them.

:)

You wound me, sir! Wound me!

It's an accurate description made without judgement, from my point of view.

I'm actually thinking of changing my profile pic too. Maybe give other Transformers and their quotes some attention. I really want to use Megatron and "such heroic nonsense".

Not Rodimus though. Never Rodimus.

Edited by M84 on Jun 26th 2019 at 6:31:08 PM

poor hotrod,he was a good kid

I might draw more of my OCs for Avatars when you put it that way.

The more I hear about Valkyria Chronicles, the less I want to try it.

Gameplay wise its a solid third person shooter/strategy hybrid, and some of the characters (especially secondary ones) are well written, but you need to be ready to accept that the story isn't the best thing going for it. Its not pro-genocide or pro-fascist by any means, it just fumbles attempting to make its conflict nuanced. If one can tolerate that, its worth looking into.

I have it, something about the hybrid part of it keeps making me bounce off it whenever I try it, but I can tell that there's something there and I believe people who rave about it.

Honestly, the whole 'band of war buddies' aspect is by far the superior part of the writing in ones I've played (disclaimer: only 1 and 4 right now). In terms of gameplay, they're quite a lot of fun.

They are also very strongly anti-imperialist and anti-nuke, though 1 drops the latter ball hard. 4 does a much better job of handling that aspect. I would also say that while there are definite elements of trying to make the people morally gray, I wouldn't say the conflict is, at least not in general. The Empire are very clearly the aggressors, and when the Federation makes its too-hasty turn against Gallia too, that honestly didn't feel too out of character for Totally Not America: The Expy. The Empire also has the incredibly clear Mengele figure in 4; while the Federation and Gallia were also doing Valkyria experiments, that's also a reasonable point to condemn the US of the 30s and 40s on.

Edited by RedSavant on Jun 26th 2019 at 1:00:25 PM

Wait. Anti-Nuke is a ideology?

Wishing to prevent the use and thus normalization of Nuclear Weapons is reasonable. That's why we have the WMD classification. Nuclear, Biological and Chemical weapons are a big No.

But...being against nukes by itself? That's just...silly.

Yes, some people are pro-nuke as a way to prevent war.

Others think nukes should be outlawed completely as a crime against humanity.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jun 26th 2019 at 11:01:19 AM

It's anti-nuclear weaponry, yeah. The superpowered Valkyrias are the game's nuclear weapon analogies, and the first game kind of ruins its message by having the Gallians' Valkyria end up being instrumental to both A) deflect an Empire Valkyria several times and B) defeat the (otherwise entirely conventional) superweapon final boss.

VC4 is more nuanced on the matter and manages not to shoot itself in the foot with the message, by ackonwledging both that the technology is supremely useful and that it could be dangerous in the wrong hands; it's muddied a bit by 4's take on it being closer to Powered by a Forsaken Child, though.

Edited by RedSavant on Jun 26th 2019 at 2:40:53 PM

Both of those positions are a little ridiculous.

Sincerity Mode, but I really fail to see any inherent negative trait on nukes. IMO, Biological (as Bio engeenered Bacteria or Viruses) weapons are "Eviler". And I'm sure there a good counterargument for my belief regarding Bio-weapons.

Dunno. I read Twilight Of The Red Tsar and the deliberate use of Smallpox for the Soviets is still one of the most horrid crimes that I have read.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Jun 26th 2019 at 2:35:50 PM

Note that while the world grudgingly accepts that some countries have nukes, nobody is okay with bio-weapons.

Reminds me of the Alan Moore comic League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. In that story, the Martian Invasion from War of the Worlds is defeated not by a common cold but by a hybrid super-bacteria engineered by Dr. Moreau that is unleashed by the British government. Said bacteria also claims the lives of many civilians in the region, which the British government covers up. This disgusts Captain Nemo (a very brutal and ruthless man himself) so much that he immediately quits the League.

In Stephen King's The Stand, two villains have different reactions to the Captain Trips superflu.

The Big Bad Randall Flagg is amused by it all and even contemplates unleashing the other super viruses the USA government had developed upon the Free Zone. This highlights what an utterly evil being he is.

His weapons savant Donald Merwin Elbert aka Trashcan Man otoh refrains from retrieving them since he finds cold plague distasteful since it doesn't care who it kills. He's the kind of guy who gushes over fire, including the "Big Fire" a nuke, but he doesn't like bio-weapons.

Edited by M84 on Jun 27th 2019 at 3:50:00 AM

Yeah, you can justify nuking a enemy, is super hard to sell and not everyone could agree, but you might use a Godzilla Threshold argument.

However, deploying a engineered bacteria/virus on a enemy country? Your country now is a Pariah and with good reason.

Chemical weapons are also bad too, like, the use of Agent Orange is by far the worst act of USA in the Vietnam War. Thought they're also by far the most common of the "Forbidden Three", given that while it earns you dislike, even countries that are enemies of USA can get away with using them (Hi Assad...).

Edited by KazuyaProta on Jun 26th 2019 at 2:56:50 PM

Especially since diseases have a tendency to spread and mutate.

Edited by M84 on Jun 27th 2019 at 3:55:56 AM

Yeah, you're not just harming your enemies in one of the cruelest ways imaginable. You're potentially endangering your own people and neightboring neutral countries.

Is normal that I find the fact that the WMD follow The Rule of Three , quite amusing? As, Now I'm imagining something as a Pokemon Legendary trio representing Nukes, Chemical weapons and Bioweapons

Not just neutral countries, but likely your allies too.