House of Ashes: The Kotaku Review
kotaku.com
The latest entry in the Dark Pictures Anthology loses its way among messy Iraq War themes

What does it say about the artistic decadence in anglo societies that they are still doing the whole "poor war criminals" theme in 2021, complete with made-up Iraqis supporting the war criminals lmao?

Like, even from a profit based angle, this is just pathetic to see.

Decline and decadence do not spare anything after all, including art. It's the ultimate price barbaric societies are fated to pay. Even artistically speaking, anglo societies are entering an even darker age.

A western-watcher would say that the collapse of western art is intrinsically related to their adherence to the most extreme forms of Christianity (that's what "western liberal values" ultimately are), where the world is divided between "saviors" (people with the same exact worldview of white american boomers) and "evil-doers" who are reduced to caricatures, no in between, no subtlety, no understanding of culture or history, no curiosity. Occasionally one of the "evil doers" is given "development" only to merely give emotional support to the "saviors", like western propaganda quoting some fascists in other countries to support american barbarism.

These are the same people who think they are culturally diverse societies but can't produce and are materially forbidden from producing anything that deviates from the most extreme forms of western imperialist "liberalism".

The obsession of anglo societies with atrocity porn in fiction is also a manifestation of such psychological rot. For example, some anglos praise games like "Last of Us" for its story, but it is yet another atrocity porn story with some makeup to make it seem deeper than what it actually is. It's bottom-tier art, complete with "white middle age man" saves girl from evil world. It's like a caricature of the worldview of white conservatives lmao, this is basically why they hate anything remotely "foreign". How can even self proclaimed "progressive" anglos praise such turd is beyond me.

A perfect encapsulation of how late-stage western imperialist decline is intrinsically related to their artistic decadence was given by western regimes literally concealing the Guernica in powell's presentation at the UN: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/02/guer-f08.html

    • Ovuan [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Not really, someone below confirmed the underlying reason for my criticism: https://archive.vn/qd5oy

      • LENINSGHOSTFACEKILLA [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Sorry, but the themes just don't fit the reality. Maybe that inspired the initial idea, but getting upset over an incredibly generic "cycle of violence" storyline because it reminds you of a liberals' POV of Isreal is dumb, and I'm not interested in pretending a clearly not-applicable opinion on reality ruin a game that wasn't just fun, but brilliantly acted.

        • LeninWeave [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          The game's co-director and co-writer Neil Druckmann, an Israeli who was born and raised in the West Bank before his family moved to the U.S., told the Washington Post that the game's themes of revenge can be traced back to the 2000 killing of two Israeli soldiers by a mob in Ramallah. Some of the gruesome details of the incident were captured on video, which Druckmann viewed. In his interview, he recounted the anger and desire for vengeance he felt when he saw the video—and how he later reconsidered and regretted those impulses, saying they made him feel “gross and guilty.” But it gave him the kernel of a story.

          “I landed on this emotional idea of, can we, over the course of the game, make you feel this intense hate that is universal in the same way that unconditional love is universal?” Druckmann told the Post. “This hate that people feel has the same kind of universality. You hate someone so much that you want them to suffer in the way they’ve made someone you love suffer.”

          This seems to pretty blatantly indicate that it's based on the occupation of Palestine.

          • LENINSGHOSTFACEKILLA [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Right, and if you read what I stated, you'd understand that it's so obviously not applicable because it isn't the reality of the situation in Palestine. I'm genuinely amazed that anyone that didn't read a very specific interview could possibly walk away with the idea "omg this is just like Isreal" because it's so far removed.

            Stop listening to liberals and enjoy some things

            • LeninWeave [none/use name]
              ·
              3 years ago

              I can see it was obviously inspired by Israel (because the co-director and co-writer said so) and obviously all media produced by a society is influenced by that society in some way. I don't know much more than that because I haven't played the game, and I probably never will, so that's kind of where my involvement in this discussion starts and ends. No one's stopping you from enjoying the game, though.

                • LeninWeave [none/use name]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  Your first comment in this thread was "The last of us is great and you’re dumb", and all you've really done here is deny that the story is a liberal's POV of Israel even though that liberal said in an interview that it was based on his POV of Israel. This whole thread of comments, in my opinion, has been a waste of time.

                  Like I said, you can enjoy the game just fine if you want to, but the guy who helped write and direct it is pretty clear it was based on Israel, so I don't think it's useful to deny that angle for media criticism/analysis of it.

                  • LENINSGHOSTFACEKILLA [he/him]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    No, I said that their dumb fuck opinion is clearly not applicable to reality, and the idea that the game represents the Palestine occupation to anyone but terminally online dipshits that read every thought of one game dev is hilariously stupid and as such shouldn't influence anyone's opinion on an excellent game, but okay. Keep on keeping on, comrade.