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

Bolded part mine.

The Confederacy itself spawning in the middle of WW 2? Sorry but, not matter how cynical you are, that is ridiculous unless you spent the decade before the war killing every single reasonable person in USA.

USA haven't deal with its legacy of slavery at its fullest, but USA becoming the CSA in the middle of WW 2 is arround the same as 70's Japan becoming Imperial Japan.

It might be a interesting scenario to try to bring, but is something that needs massive POD

Edited by KazuyaProta on Feb 14th 2019 at 11:57:00 AM

No, but there's always context to be considered. Like all the 'Stalin, Stalin, Stalin'-ing people do when talking about the Soviet Union before, during and shortly after WW2.

Stalin was undeniably a horrible person, but to refer to him solely for everything that was wrong with the Soviet Union is, in itself, a rehabilitation of the likes of Khrushchev, Molotov, Bulganin, Beria et. al.

I've, frequently, been accused of being a (not so) secret tankie on this forum, but my 'defences' of Stalin are less about rehabilitating him (he doesn't deserve it) and more about fighting against the attempt by Stalin-era officials (especially Khrushchev) to take all of the blame for what the Soviet regime did during Stalin's reign off of their own shoulders and place it solely on Stalin's head. Because 'Nothing happened that wasn't ordered directly by Stalin' is pretty much the Soviet equivalent of the Clean Wehrmacht myth.

I actually did like THE DEATH OF STALIN for illustrating just what a horrible collection of people they were. Yes, it was a comedy and not entirely inaccurate but I do think it managed to capture the zeitgeist well in places as well as how insane quite a few things in the Soviet system was.

Ironically, the Reality Is Unrealistic element undermined it in places. Like they don't bother to explain "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer that Stalin's son got the Soviet Soccer team killed (his one job to manage them—as a general) and he replaced them hoping they'd notice—they just allude to it. Perhaps because it's not even that weird in the film's collection of horrible events.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 15th 2019 at 12:50:57 PM

I still like the idea brought up way back when that if a civilization simulator game has a playable Nazi faction, then that Nazi faction ought to suffer gameplay penalties to represent the resources the Nazis used up to enact the Holocaust.

There's some seriously bad ramifications to Destalinization too.

Like... Because he did it to get rid of the 'stain' of Stalinism, Khrushchev's purge of the Soviet party generally gets glossed over when discussing how utterly shitty the Soviet leadership was.

Or, for a more direct example of harm today: The way that the Holodomor gets blamed solely on Stalin when it was, in practical terms, conducted by the (ethnically Russian) administration of the Ukrainian SSR. Many of the people in that administration and their political descendants were never called to account for the Holodomor (instead they used Destalinization to shift the blame onto Stalin and the Supreme Soviet in Russia) and as a result they maintained a significant level of power until well after the Soviet Union collapsed, which contributed directly to the recent undermining of the independence of the Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea.

Not really sure why the word stain is in inverted commas up there. Putting a word in inverted commas like that implies sarcasm, and Stalinism was genuinely awful.

Yeah, one of the best parts of the Kaisserreich mod to me is that it doesn't shy away from just straight up giving you massive penalties for going authoritarian and purging your opposition.

Unlike regular HoI4 and Civ VI where the question of 'Do I go for Fascism/Nationalism, Communism or Democracy?' is mostly based on which bonuses you want for your current playthrough.

Good point, allow me to clarify: I put it in inverted commas because the word stain implies that it is something from the outside that can, therefore, be washed off. Stalinism was, as you said, genuinely awful and Khrushchev was part of it. Deriding it afterwards, after he'd already used the power he gained from participating in it to seize power, wasn't him washing away the stain of Stalinism, it was just him painting a fresh layer of paint over the inherent toxic corruption of the Soviet system at that point to make it less visible.

Toxic corruption built straight into the system at its founding. By Lenin.

'Cause the thing is... Stalinism isn't really a distinct ideology, it's more or less just something Khrushchev made up because he wanted to disavow Stalin's own cult of personality while continuing to bank on Lenin's. Contrary to what Khrushchev would later claim, Stalin wasn't some kind of corrupt evil genius who turned the Soviet Union away from its rightful and just Leninist course for his own power. Stalin was cunning, but he wasn't very prone to independent thought and his operating procedure was pretty much 'Continue doing what Lenin did, but more so.' Stalin's the perfect secular example of what happens when a fundamentalist gets absolute power.

I want to talk about how works, which rely on "How much everything and everyone sucks" and uses this to justify protagonist behavor and actions, affect politics and media of people in real life. Like, i've met a LOT of different edgelords both in real life and online, who justify slavery and dictatorship as "It's no them (slavers, dictators and ec.) at fault, it's just the world is shitty and it's the only way to survive" or something like that. Like "The Punisher", which uses "Police and government system is inherently corrupt and the only way to deliver justice is through the bullet in the face and brutal torture" or the recent "The Rising of Shield Hero", which seems to go out it's way to justify slaver-protagonist, has some people (even on this site) considering main antagonist's fate (to be raped to death) as great catharsis factor. Also it's really telling that today work considered realistic, by how much edgy it is (AKA quantity of gore, tits and dark and edgy protagonists), with logic is "more edgy = more realistic".

Actually, Stalinism was somewhat different. Besides the mass murders, anti-intellectualism (in the form of murdering intellectuals), purges of political opponents (with more murder), complete state control of the economy and rapid industrialization (at the cost of agricultural production leading to starvation and possibly more murder) and the cult of personality revolving around Stalin, it also adhered to the theory of Socialism in One Country.

Edited by M84 on Feb 16th 2019 at 10:50:59 PM

Ah Shield Hero, where many of the morally worse LN cliches combine. Seriously, I'm a bit surprised that the polemic was for the Villain doing a False Rape Acussation and not that her Punishment is being sold as a Sex Slave.

Our hero!.

(The worse is that I don't lie, there other people in a Hero From Another Story situation, but they are exist to be selfish foils to him)

Seriously. Naofumi is legit seen as a outright heroic guy in many anime communities. That's how bad it gets.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Feb 16th 2019 at 9:56:54 AM

Rising of the Shield Hero is one of those works you kind of have to turn your brain off to enjoy.

That simply heavily depends on how well the author can sell the hopelessness of the setting to justify the actions of its characters.

For instance, in A Song of Ice and Fire, several good-aligned characters behave in ways that would make them villains in lighter settings, but Martin has made a world that is so shitty I can buy their actions, reprehensible as they may be, as the only logical course of action in their situation.

It helps that the characters we are supposed to view as heroic, such as Jon, Jaime and my personal favorite Davos, are shown to very much hate the things they feel forced to do and are generally quite remorseful.

In The Punisher, however, that is simply not applicable, because it takes place in a real world-ish setting, and today we know just shotting every criminal in the head won't solve crime, which is why his best stories a) make him face criminal so despicable we feel a sense of catarsis we they die ^note Who didn't cheer when Frank killed that neo-nazi who tried to sell him child pornography in Daredevil Season 2? and b) puts enphasis on how much of a disturbed individual Frank is and explore why he became like that.

Punisher MAX, for all its ending was quite, eh, awkward, does both, which is why it is one of the best runs of the character.

As for Real Life neo-facist (Hate the word "edgelord", it doesn't mean anything anymore), they're arseholes and you should ignore them.

Edgelord still had meaning, I don't think that being a asshole alone is enought to be called a fascist.

You can be an edgelord without necessarily being a Neo-Nazi or something. Edgelords can be characterized by their belief that gratuitous violence and rape makes a work mature.

I just saw some edgelord literally named Anime Outrage with a video titled something along the lines of Why Shield Hero is okay and if you don't like it your thin skinned or some dumb shit like that.

The sheer irony of someone whom is saying anyone whom dislikes that anime is thin skinned while they are throwing a tantrum over those people.

Barring shield heroes problematic components the anime to me just sounds like boring shitty tripe. I have seen tons of animes were some loser gets shoved into a fantasy or gaming world, shits boring as hell.

I personally really hate how people associate being mature with being edgy these days.

It's because it makes them feel smart. Just shove gore, rape and disturbing details to your work and "BOOM", it's mature now.

Edited by VeryVileVillian on Feb 16th 2019 at 6:07:37 PM

The last good isekai shows were Re:Zero and Konosuba, the rest should burn into oblivion.

The unfortunate fact, however, is that they are the anime equivalent of teenage dramas like Gossip Girl and Riverdale, so they're never going away.

.....Jesus Christ. How can anyone defend that?

Edited by Gaon on Feb 16th 2019 at 7:23:37 AM

The writer basically did everything they could to make said antagonist a total Hate Sink with zero redeeming qualities.

The writer has admitted in an interview to basing antagonists on real people they hated, and boy does it show.

Edited by M84 on Feb 16th 2019 at 11:29:32 PM

The Overall Big Bad of the franchise fit that waaaaaay better. Medea is easily more hateable

Edited by KazuyaProta on Feb 16th 2019 at 10:33:07 AM

Likely the same people whom wish for every antagonist or criminal to get prison raped.

...Which is sadly very common, even in liberal circles....

Edited by Wispy on Feb 16th 2019 at 7:31:21 AM

As a note. Naofumi ironically made Malty Acussation right. She claimed that he was a rapist, Naofuimi actually sold her as Sex Slave.

You somehow did make your Hate Sink right. That's massively incompetent.

Well, "Darker and Edgier = Mature" is a side-effect of the general attitude that True Art Is Angsty.

It tends to go like this "If all the most acclaimed works in any medium have dark, depressing stuff in them, then if my work is full of dark stuff, it'll be just as acclaimed!".

@Gaon: And the writer is a woman, mind you.

Uh. We really don't know the author gender. The pen name sounds femenine but is that, a pen name. And as Frog-kun /Kim Morrison noticed, is written in a way that's not how actual Japanese names are normally written.

Link here if anyone want to read the explanation

Edited by KazuyaProta on Feb 16th 2019 at 10:49:27 AM