...also to add to the racism thing (Gaming)

by Jillybean, Tuesday, August 13, 2013, 12:57 (3909 days ago) @ davidfuchs

A lot of the arguments seem to be complaining that they didn't do more with it, but my counter-argument is that every story should not be about what we as a modern society consider objectionable. It's very high-minded of us to look back on the previous decades and pretend we're better than them, but we have had a lot of benefit of hindsight and changing times. The abolitionists might have hated slavery, but many would have been joining the lynching parties to stop miscegenation had they been transported a hundred years later.

Karen Maitland writes historical fiction, all of it very gory and horrific. At the end of one of her novels, I can't remember which one, she makes a very eloquent case for the dangers of dismissing the past for sins that we might think of ignorant. If, in a thousand years time, people look at our actions with such disdain and say we were simply living in the dark ages, would we not be ashamed?

Racism is a fact of our existence, and a part of the fabric and culture of the turn-of-the-century. But the argument that a story set in that period must make its purpose revolve around those issues is laughable. Racism isn't really the point of Infinite, which is at its core a story of a select few individuals. While I think a game exploring race issues in Columbia could have been thought-provoking and fascinating, I don't think it's fair to vilify artists for not painting the pictures you want. In the end you should choose to express yourself.

But my issue with it is that racism is held up as this card: "look at our deep story", by giving you the choices, the pieces of side dialogue where Booker is kind to the odd minority, the cliched twist of power corrupting - it's not nearly as clever as it thinks it is. In my opinion, anyway.