Admit It

I've decided to vote Republican in the next election. For one reason that has nothing to do with policy (foreign or domestic) or any issues. Well, sort of. I'm voting Republican because, deep down, and I suspect many people feel this way, I want to see what happens if the villains win.
It's a sad truth that the villain rarely gets anywhere in fiction. Audiences won't stand for it (see below: we consider ourselves the good guys), and it doesn't sell so well. Watchmen was an awesome thing among comics, but it took a long time for it to be adapted to the big screen (and even then we had to have an anti-government, pro-rich folks boner so big it rivals Dr. Manhattan's). Even in V for Vendetta, a movie about a terrorist, we needed to have him be the good guy for it to sell. Moral ambiguity upsets our stomachs.
But the same is not true in real life. We re-write history to paint ourselves in a good light, but current events let you assign hero and villain roles as you wish. Each political party considers themselves the good guys, or Batman, to our troubled nation. I, however, see them thusly:
Republicans: Joker
Democrats: Stupid safecracker who shot one guy, then couldn't figure out that maybe the Joker would kill him too, despite having just fucking shot a guy on his team!
And while I love Batman, I, like most of us, paid my ten bucks to sit in the theater and watch the Joker blow shit up for two hours. The problem is that Joker loses, while the Republicans have demonstrated an ability to engage in base and vile villainy, and still pull out a win. So, when a villain in real life can win, and you've never seen that (not really) in fiction, the temptation becomes too much, and you must vote for them. Just imagine if one of those groups of people on the ferries had blown the other group up; or if Batman hadn't figured out the Joker's plan to switch doctors and clowns, or if Harvey Dent had killed Jim Gordon. It would be terrible, and awesome, to watch. And if I can't see it in the movies or books, I'll settle for real life. 

Space Satan Whispers in Our Ears...

Digital Morality

I’m a big fan of Nietzsche. He cuts through a lot of what I see as bullshit, to strike at the heart of morals. I mentioned last time that no one sees him-or-herself as the bad guy, though we can recognize when we fuck up. We all make our own morality, even if it entails only slight changes to whatever is usual near you.

I am not a fan of Ayn Rand (actually I think she was an insufferable twat) so when I play Bioshock and Andrew Ryan starts screaming at me “A man chooses! A slave obeys!” I prefer to see the connection to Nietzsche rather than Rand (although Ryan’s super-capitalism-whatever falls within her ballpark).

Bioshock is a fun first-person shooter that asks an interesting moral question: is it okay to kill kids (like, if you really need to)? While I don’t like kids (they poop and don’t clean it up) I’m against killing them. I guess it’s just how I was brought up, which may make me old-fashioned. That said children give you superhuman powers (maniacal laugh sold separately) makes me go, “ehhh,” but I’m still firmly on the anti-child-murder side.

But the real interest isn’t in the moral choices themselves, but what they mean. Spoilers ahead, but this game is pretty old now, so if you haven’t played, you probably won’t. Jack (the character you play) is closer to a Big Daddy than a real human. He was constructed from a stolen fetus, and is actually Andrew Ryan’s son (with his hooker mistress, a lady who got the decidedly short and shitty end of the stick). Ryan, the guy you’re trying to kill for most of the game, is the enemy of Atlas, aka Frank Fontaine, who has programmed Jack to respond to a certain phrase, “Would you kindly?” that makes Jack do whatever he wants. He uses this phrase all the time, and it’s not until after the reveal (when Ryan forces you to kill him [he figured it out] to prove a point) that the player sees how neatly they’ve been led along.

This brings me back to the kid-killing. You kill kids for superpowers. Or, you can save them to get fewer superpowers. Atlas is pro-murder, but - and I just noticed this on my last playthrough - he never uses the command phrase to force you to kill. That decision is left in the player’s hands. (One explanation is the dev team wanted moral choices so didn’t force you, but that’s the less interesting idea, so fuck it). The player is put in a place that seems beyond good and evil, and presented with a choice that means survival or death; can he, or she, ignore the conventional morality and make the hard (evil) decision? Is it possible, because Jack thinks (for most of the game) that he is human, that Atlas was unable to force this sort of monstrous decision to the conclusion he preferred?

In a world built to deny the traditional rules and morals, your cynical heart can run free. You can get all up in Rand’s philosophy that doing what is best for you is somehow best for everyone (hint: it’s not) or you can take a look at the Nietzschean subplot and determine, free from former constraints, what it means to be moral in a world that has gone shithouse rat-style crazy.

Who Loses in Two Girls, One Cup?

What is the nature of a fight between good and evil (or if you prefer, Good and Evil)?
That’s right, bitches; it’s gonna be one of them talks.
Let’s get this out of the way: there has never been a real fight between Good and Evil. Not one that has been recognized by both fighters, at least. There is not someone who thinks “I am the real evil bastard here. I am doing this because fuck that other guy, and his stupid kids.” And this is usually mirrored in fiction, especially fantasy and science fiction (horror can go either way; in IT, the monster is an evil from beyond time and space, but that’s not really fair to it, no one’s going to even give a shit about it’s side of the story. On the other hand, in Bite, by Richard Laymon, the good guys are a couple of murderers trying to get away from a slightly worse murderer. Really, in horror, it all depends on where you’re standing, and blocking out the possibility of the other guy’s story is important. Crazy ghost Japanese lady in the Grudge is scary right up until we learn her momma put some hoodoo on her. Then it’s retarded).
A Song of Ice and Fire is my main example that, although we may sympathize with some characters more than others, everyone can be a real fucker. Spoilers for the first two books ahead, beware ye.
Ned Stark is the recipient of my sympathy in A Game of Thrones. This despite the first act I see him perform is chopping off someone else’s head. The Lannisters are the villains. At least they’re supposed to be; don’t get me wrong, they can be crazy. Joffrey is a thirteen year-old psychopath, but he was raised by psychopaths. It’s hard to blame a kid for being a crazy little shit when he was raised to be a crazy little shit. But how much better is Ned? He’s a cold, brutal man, by necessity, given where he lives. He is offered a bitch job as the King’s Hand, which he doesn’t want. Catelyn, his wife, insists that he take it, because she is afraid it will bring their loyalty into question if he doesn’t (kinda like turning down a promotion at work, except your boss decapitates you). Then a letter comes that points at some dirty dealings by the Lannisters, who are next in line to the throne, and uh-oh! It’s time to fuck shit up.
Which is exactly what happens.
Book two is all about the war that ensues after Ned is killed by Joffrey (read the book, willya? It’s too long to explain). The hostilities begin because Catelyn, displaying an overabundance of “what the fuck is wrong with her?!” kidnaps a Lannister brother, whom she believes tried to have her son killed. Granted, the Lannisters began it by tossing her son out a window (read psychopaths, above), but no one had any evidence for it beyond the word of one asshole who is, if anything, more sleazy than the Lannisters.
A Song of Ice and Fire goes out of its way to remind us, throughout Thrones, that though we may sympathize with the royals and nobles, the people really getting fucked are the ordinary people; their homes are destroyed, their lands burned, their sons killed, their daughters raped, and then killed. Ned Stark could have let it go at any point; he even tried to, by warning the Lannister queen that he knows a bit about her evilness (which prompts her to trap and kill him). He does this because he understands the lengths to which a person will go to protect their children. If he could let it go that far, why not all the way? I get that they’re assholes, but the lives of a bunch of common people who have no stake in the outcome of the throne weigh more heavily than Ned’s sense of honor.
Tyrion Lannister, a dwarf, is hated by most of the cast. Jon Snow, a bastard, who similarly has no place in this society, is the only one to empathize with him (seriously, Tyrion’s family, with one exception, all hate him). Tyrion is actually a good guy, at least as good as Ned, though considerably smarter about how he achieves justice as the King‘s Hand; for instance, he is not beheaded by the end of book two, whereas Ned  doesn’t make it through book one. Despite this, Tyrion is universally reviled, because: Everyone sees themselves as the good guy; the bad guy is the other, the boogeyman. Tyrion is, on sight, recognizable as the other. And everyone else?
That’s for next time, in a talk about why they see themselves as the good guys, what it means when we don’t see both sides, and how this plays in videogames.

“… why is it always innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones?”
Varys, A Game of Thrones

So Say Most of Us. I guess. I'll get back to you.

Spoilers for Battlestar Galactica may be present.
If you've ever interacted with science-fiction in any way you've encountered robots who don't know they're robots, robots who do know, and hate humans, and humans who might be robots, and hate robots. Phillip K. Dick started it (probably) with "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", which was made into Blade Runner (a more dramatic and catchy title), which inspired stuff like Battlestar Galactica. The good one, not the original. Satan inspired the original.
There's a reason it gets used so often; identity issues seem to go hand-in-hand with being human. It also gets to couch sensitive subjects (like: slavery, war, murder, etc.) in more comfortable terms. It's okay if your coworker is one of those dickbeards who call Cylons toasters, and thinks they should all be killed; your toaster won't rise up anytime soon, and he's not saying anything bad about anyone who actually exists. Hooray for all!
But sci-fi rarely answers these issues, in part because there are no ready answers. A hundred years after the Civil War, Alabama was just getting around to admitting African Americans might be people. Today, we still have organizations like the KKK, "Southern Heritage" is used as a thin veneer to celebrate racism in some places (and in others to actually promote the good things about a state), and Huckleberry Finn is being watered down at the same time some organizations are trying to pretend slavery didn't happen (in addition to other abuses of non-white people). How can a fictional book/show/movie say for certain if we will ever get along with our robot overlords, when most of us can't get along with one another?
This naturally brings up more disturbing questions. This'un is asked in the miniseries of the new BSG, by Commander William Adama, at what was supposed to be his retirement speech.
"You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question "Why?" Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed and spite, jealousy, and we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we've done, like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. And when that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn't our fault, not really."
If you wondered, that question is never answered. throughout 4.5 seasons, the characters, main, support, and enemy, are unable to provide a definite answer as to why humanity deserves to survive. This is after the Cylons nuke a several trillion population down to 50,000.
Throughout the show, the characters seem determined to prove why they shouldn't survive. Not that they're stupid; humanity wins at evolution. But Adama asks why we should survive, when another life form - the Cylons - are just as advanced as we are, just as intelligent. But robots. A distinction that, in the show, matters as much as the color of skin. Not that the characters see it that way. For most of the show, the majority of humans and Cylons despise each other, and in the end, though some reconciliation is made, the two groups are separated.
The writers of this show had 4.5 seasons to answer a fairly basic question: why are we, as a species, worth saving? During the show the humans fight, kill, and betray one another. They also love, forgive, and try to be better. The president tries to force an abortion on a captured Cylon, then later kidnaps the baby and gives it to someone else to raise. The doctor (there's basically only one left) objects, but obeys. They leave a ship behind that had a tracking device on it, and it is destroyed by the Cylons. They almost commit genocide, and fail. They don't decide genocide is bad, one of the characters particularly sympathetic to Cylons stops them before they can unleash a plague. By "them" I mean the main characters, the leaders. The support also fucks up royally, and mention is made of the people we don't see behaving... well, like people. Murderous, thieving, lying, cheating, people. These are the protagonists, trying to prove humanity deserves a second chance.
Do we?

Santa is real, and he and Jesus fight crime

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2011/02/12/the-bankrupt-nihilism-of-our-fallen-fantasists/#idc-cover

If you get into the comments (and I can't blame you if you don't, it turns into a real circle jerk) they start bitching about women pushing "chick-lit", describing it as "novels for fat lesbians with cats" (classy), and ousting "real manly-man's fiction, rar!". But the article bitches out fantasy writers who do take a hyper-masculine, super violent approach, but don't end with a snuggle and say "everything'll be all right."
So: fantasy that focuses on personal relationships=bad. Fantasy that doesn't give the warm-fuzzies=bad. Tolkien and Howard, two admitted, admirable masters= good and super dead and done to fucking death.

I made dis! Yaaayyyuuuhhh

Get ready for some Stupid

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/FireDavidGaider/

I have not played DA2 yet, so I can't respond to criticisms that the games sucks, is not hardkore enough (k intended, sirs and madams), or totally suxxors, lol.
Writing that last part killed me a little inside.
What I do know is that petitioner is angry about how gays are portrayed. He is likely gay himself (I don't typically get mad about fucking games that don't target me directly), and he feels the negative portrayal is firing-worthy.
Let's the back the crazy up a minute.
"This is the type of garbage that has people believe that gays shouldn't serve in the military. We are human beings that are the same as everyone else!"
The garbage that has people believe gays shouldn't serve in the military doesn't come from a game. It comes from insecurity, false facts, and general douchery. No one who has ever actually met a gay person believes that he or she will spend time in combat trying to get in your pants.
No, straight people are more likely to do that. Or at least pretend to do that. Let me explain. For four years, I attended an all-male school. For a while I worked in an all-male environment. In both places, I knew a total of three or four gay men. Yet there was homosexual innuendo all the time. Because straight people mess with each other. It's crazy, but saying "If you don't shut up, I will skull-fuck you," doesn't mean any real skull-fuckery will take place. We're just messed up, dudes. Women probably are too. I know that, in a single sex environment this sort of blatant - whatever, is rampant, whereas in mixed environments things are a lot calmer. By that I mean, I probably won't try to fake seduce a gay man (something I did - or said I did, when I remembered) when a woman is around. And I won't do it at all with someone I don't know well.
So, angry gay guy, think for a moment: you're playing a game with several gay party members, and in context their lives are constantly in danger. Does a pat on the ass or maybe even a smoochy face (anything short of them trying to fuck you, basically) really mean the game negatively portrays gays? Or is it that, in a relaxed, close-knit environment, we (straights, gays, bears, whatever) will fuck with each other in ways not dreamed of by God?