Oh, great. Is Gutier aware that Volkolak is a neonazi white supremacist Black Metal band? https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Волколак/29628 Genre: Folk Metal, Pagan/Black Metal Lyrical themes: Ancient traditions, White pride, Heathenism, National socialism Because between the name of the unit, the band's hateful politics and the unit patch looking kinda-sorta-like-a-neonazi-triskel, it's starting to get really ripe, really fast. EDIT: Anyone in doubt of the band being racist, white power, NSBM: http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/in...&f=false#v=onepage&q=volkolak reviews&f=false
Honestly, anyone saying Merrill's Marauders is an "obscure" reference? Didn't even remotely look. 5307th Composite Unit was literally the name.
Some people just can’t reconcile that their hobby may contain distasteful or racist references. References they were previously unaware of or did not recognize as offensive. You can’t “go back” to the way things were once it’s pointed out. The Haqq and desperado examples show CB is willing to grow and learn from what it’s communities want. Those that cling to an ignorant past should feel slighted by a world that no longer cares about their feelings or racist ideations.
I guess i'll rephrase for you: "I'm bowing out of this argument because you're insane". You can take that as a victory i guess, i don't care.
Volkolak is a word for Vampire in the western Balkans, mind. It's quite possible that Gutier has not listened to this (extremely obscure) band
Truthfully, the Desperado example is a bad one. They talked about being big into motorcycle culture here in the US and Europe...and that has huge problems with the Confederate flag being used alongside of white supremacists and neo-Nazis. The past four years have been a wonderful showcasing of exactly what 'Southern Heritage' is here in the US. And it ain't good.
I mean, learning any game I really enjoy is developed by someone who would see many of my loved ones killed or exiled would very much poison the well, yes. Not that I think this is the case, metal does not mean Nazi metal and I think more likely the name was chosen for its folklore connotations.
Between this, the recent Svalarheima "badass white supremacists terrorist faction", a lot of other things are starting to look more suspect than they otherwise would, as a normalization of really problematic shit. Kuang Shi suicide human-bomb puppets? The Kuroshi Rider's swastika that alone could be (and was) glossed over, but now? The acceptance of genocide and eugenics in other factions? Ariadna and antipodes / Dog Warriors? A lot of stuff becomes problematic really fast if we discover that the chief designer is actually influenced by such bright ideas as white supremacy and national socialism.
My current stance is wait and see. Because the unit patch / Russian / the NSBM band "Volkolak" looks like way too many coincidences. It looks like a cheeky reference for those who would recognize the symbol as quasi-neonazi and connect it with the obscure NSBM band. I'm really curious of the unit's fluff now and whether it has white power / neonazi undertones. And like I said before, we've already seen this exact kind of bullshit in the industry (nu-White Wolf). It's been done, neonazis have used game text to whistleblow to their kind. I really hope this isn't the case. Gutier should at the very least come out and disavow this bullshit in the open.
I agree with you up to this point. Putting something in a fictional setting does not equal normalization of said thing in the real world. How would you reconcile playing a murderer in a video game otherwise? The question is: Is it plausible for thing X to exist within the setting? If it is within the parameters set by the setting, than it has a place in it.
Yes, a unit from the CBI campaigns of WW2, campaigns nicknamed "The Forgotten Theater" in official histories, is obscure compared to the Rangers, Minutemen, and Devil Dogs references in other units.
Unfortunately, normalization of such symbols and ideas is exactly how we got extreme far-right in public spaces and governments again in the last two decades. I've seen this happen in Poland, in the rest of EU, in the US. We cannot accept this bullshit, it needs to be unequivocally marked as "evil faction" if it's used. Not a playable unit, not a "badass Norse NPC faction some playables were / are part of".
True, these things have become more prevalent, but that's hardly linked to fiction. The reasons are very much based in reality. Yes, we can (no pun intended). People are competent enough to draw their own conclusions and don't need self-appointed arbiters of good and evil do to the job for them. I'm not supposed to play the evil guys? Are you sure you know what "play" means?
How many video games actively have you playing as a flatout murderer? I genuinely can't think of many Big Name Games. I know in Mass Effect whenever you chose to murder things, you got Renegade points which would come back to bite you in the ass later. Oh god don't even get me started on Devil Dogs. D But yes, even a passing familiarity with the Second World War and the US involvement would have you aware of Merrill's Marauders. The middle school textbooks I had back in another life downplayed the Chinese and made it sound like the Marauders singlehandedly stalemated the Japanese in mainland Asia. See, but they're aliens from another galaxy. People aren't necessarily going to sympathize with them.
The Svalarheiman Nationalists are not playable in game, both Uma and Gunnar left the faction and have actively fought against it. Showing that members can be reformed is just as critical as disavowing these movements (and they absolutely should be disavowed). The CA are a false equivalence, there isn't a hegemonic alien race currently invading us.
See, but then that brings up another question...why the hell did we even need to introduce them? Was it just to add an element of 'bAd GuYz" to PanOceania? Because we had that. It's like the nonsense that happened with the Imperial Service. OR IS THERE...
Yeah, though Uma / Gunnar fluff was a bit problematic in the way it described the (stated as such) white power Sval nationalists. It's either heavy handed and needs nuance or it's deliberate whistleblowing in which case... Urk.
