#Ah non gardez votre Angleterre nous on n'en veut pas

[randomnameless]

I try not to be that guy who's like "fiction affects reality" "it has a bad influence on people" cause I don't think that's necessarily true. Just because people liked the Joker or the GTA franchise doesn't mean that there's going to be a rise in mass shootings or anything like that. But at the same time, with the rhetoric these Edelstans are throwing, they're making it hard to believe that day by day, isn't it?

Yep!

And then people will tell you playing video games makes children violent, because they can't make a difference between jumping on a mushroom in a fantasy life from jumping on a mushroom in real life.

I think it's just ultimately the nature of Discourse, people don't want to nerd about their VG characters, they try to write serious things about it, link it to serious themes and concepts

(basically me)

And there's nothing wrong with this!

But incorporating real-life smelly arguments to strengthen your fictional essay... especially since, in real life, those arguments are not acceptable ; you're not going to look smarter.

Still, what are we supposed to deduce from someone who honestly believes it's alright to kill every member of a minority who's been framed because my fave is charismatic - in a video game - ?

What are we supposed do take from someone who says it's alright to occupy other sovereign states because they used to be part of a bigger one actually led by a charismatic ruler who wants to go back to their land's glory days - in a video game - ?

Those are red flags, in the video game, where the player is supposed to nope out on this, and question the morality of the character. Like them, hate them, they are still this character, but with opinions.

However, nowadays, you cannot like a character who's not morally "acceptable" because it means you endorse what they say... so the character is perfectly good and alright.

Or should have, remember, early fandom pulled out the Teacher Theory because the alternative (canon) means a character might not be morally "clean".

But now that all of those are debunked, and the character starts to be accepted by fandom at large as a "morally not white" character, some try to use the "they're all war criminals" to diminish the impact, when some go further -

Ironically, the takes from those fans... endorse what the character says or was meant to represent, in a purely non filtered form. Because she said they are "cruel beasts", her word is absolute, so they believe and spread what she said, even when the game explains the contrary.

We're not on the "she's not an imperialist you're just a hater with ovaries" level anymore, we are crossing in the "she is an imperialist? Well those countries never existed to begin with so it's not really imperialism".

We're beyond the "she doesn't want to erase Nabateans, she just wants them gone from the world they can run away" to "maybe their genocide was deserved, because they ruled over humans and this race has always been oppressive and evil".

The first ones realise there are things you cannot justify so try to find roundabout ways to avoid them, maybe write Fics or something - but the new (at least on the dash?) ones fully embrace the fact that nothing will stop them from defending the fave, even justifying racism and imperialism.

Fiction doesn't affect reality, for a charismatic person has always been able to affect people around them - hopefully not anyone finds Edel charismatic enough to forget basic morals and rights.