• loathsome dongeater@lemmygrad.ml
    ·
    6 months ago

    Doesn't this game make fun of the freedom and democracy rhetoric. I think gamers are incapable of comprehending satire. Maybe the game just ends up normalising war crimes.

    • SSJ2Marx
      ·
      6 months ago

      Yes it's very corny and over the top, moreso than even Starship Troopers which it gets compared to a lot. The military embracing it anyway reminds me of something Zizek said about the new fascism embracing irony.

    • jack [he/him, comrade/them]M
      ·
      6 months ago

      Honestly I think most people get it because this is even more on the nose than starship troopers and the gameplay effectively reinforces the message

      • Awoo [she/her]
        ·
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        I saw someone calling China "Managed Democracy" today. They are absolutely just applying every negative thing in it to the things they don't like.

        They're completely oblivious to the fact that their rabid China rhetoric is literally the thing being ridiculed when it comes to the bots. They are entirely oblivious to the fact they are the subject of the satire.

        They only see it at the most surface level interpretation possible of "fascism bad" and do not apply it to anything in the real world appropriately. I strongly disagree that they "get it", this is a line that rightists use to kill conversation about people being oblivious to it, the goal of killing that conversation is to keep interpretations and understanding of it at the "fascism bad" surface level.

        • Babs [she/her]
          ·
          6 months ago

          Helldivers are absurdly racist to anyone they perceive to be Chinese.

          I remember seeing some awesome Chinese cosplayers being posted in the subreddit and the comments were full of "do they not get the irony???"

          • Awoo [she/her]
            ·
            edit-2
            6 months ago

            The subreddit does not in fact get the game, no matter how much they claim they definitely do and that is why there is no reason to talk about politics.

            In almost all cases "no politics" is a tool of the right to prevent spread of awareness or greater understanding. The "no politics" approach to everything is about reducing or at least preventing the spread of consciousness.

    • Maoo [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      Satire doesn't work on fascists they'll just embrace it as a celebration of their ideas.

      Funny enough, liberals often don't get satire of fascists either. Hmm. Interesting.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      6 months ago

      It did turn in to enough of. Astruggle session on the subreddit that the mods banned it. Better, i think, than i expected.