Don't Analyze: Actions Against Orcs Make You Feel Uncomfortable?

@draugen: This whole thread was worth it just for your A+ comment, you are indeed doing your part.

And to answer this thread's question: The only thing which makes me uncomfortable about MESOW is the complete disregard of any of the themes of Tolkien's works.

@brad: Holy hell, I just watched the last few cutscenes involving Bruz the Chopper and I totally understand the discomfort now. It may not necessarily be the mechanics (or even the actions of the characters themselves) but the way the game portrays them. The very last two scenes are quite disturbing, and I actually felt a bit of discomfort just watching it. I actually grimaced a bit, much in the same way when I saw Superman (spoiler incoming for Shadow of War by way of Justice League Animated) lobotomize Doomsday.

The cutscenes go beyond the personlization of orcs throughout the gameplay/fights, and into the acting and depiction of actions. I certainly don't remember much seeing depiction like that scene (Bruz the Chopper) in the first game.

As a person of color the only thing that makes me even slightly uncomfortable is my people being compared to evil Orcs. Please don't do that. It's hard enough as it is.

It doesn't bother me at all. I try to avoid killing in games if I think it goes against the character (Watchdogs 2 was a recent example) but it makes sense to me that Talion / Celebrimbor would give 2 shits about the feelings of orcs, so dead / brainwashed they are.

I actually debated on whether or not to reply to this since this tangent we're on has nothing to do with the thread. But, since I started this I might as well set the record straight.

You bring up an interesting point with farming and the wealth/status divide, but specifically in the case of India you're wrong. If we're looking at it from a historical perspective and not a philosophical/psychological perspective, the biggest contributing factor to the light/dark skin situation in India is colonialism. During the British Raj, white skin equaled power, status, and privilege. To complicate matters we have racism, the British weren't exactly shy about the fact that they found dark skin ugly. So the legacy of this situation is that light skin equates to beauty, sophistication, education, and desirability, while dark skin is equated to ugliness and crudeness.

This is sadly a common theme in a lot of former colonial countries.

I like how the question is simply "does it make you uncomfortable" and the fact that the answer might be yes is a range of unacceptable to crappy to some people. Some of you are a real delight. If something makes a person uncomfortable, what difference is it to you?

I also feel like WAY too much is being read into Ben's statement, which I took totally as a potential reason for why opinion on that game might be more divisive now than it was then. That's it. It's funny that in the same post some people can claim that a person that feels uncomfortable in the game is overanalyzing, and then proceed to overanalyze what was a pretty basic statement/theory by Ben.

I fully support enhanced interrogations used against Orcs.

Seriously, the orcs are straight up just perversions of once fair folk into uncaring monsters with one purpose or function: serving Sauron’s will.

They ain’t people and the GTA V scene didn’t bother me either.

Until you go around ripping nails out of hands I doubt anything violent or brutal will ever really get to me and even that will just churn my stomach, not really elicit an emotional response.

Also if you have a problem with this anymore than Nazis you’re probably ignorant of history or just a less than stellar person. Ultimately it’s a video game, and at least Nazis were somewhat frequently just decent people swept up in their society’s evil. Orcs are literally built to be evildoers on Sauron’s behalf.

And actually I will change my previous statement about not feeling anything from games.

I had two instances of killing civilians on my ArmA 3 milsim servers where the civilians were not trying to blow anyone up and just behaving erratically. In one, I got spooked after we were hit by an IED and shot a civvy running out of a house and making a line into the middle of my fire team. I just shot him. When me and our team lead at the time went over to check the body separate from other members continuing to hold security, the team lead placed a grenade in the guy’s inventory and then told me to take it off of him. I could tell from his tone that he had done that and another teammate walked up to ask what was up with the dead dude. TL said I saw the guy had a weapon and told our medic to check him and confiscate the grenade. I felt a tinge about that but I think it was because of the little lie told to another member of my team more than the tiny bit of regret for panicking. Made for a great OOC debrief when my TL revealed to us what he had done. Ultimately it’s a video game and it wasn’t until I was covering up my deed to a real life friend and human being that it got uncomfortable.

Even if media/art is challenging, that isn’t a bad thing. Every example mentioned in this thread hat I’ve seen of similar stuff is aware of the evil at play. It’s a certain story from a certain perspective that they want to show. It’s the same reason the most interesting part of Narcos is the POV of the Narcos. It’s not wrong on the consumer or creator side, imo, to have discomfort as a reality or a goal.

Side note I’m trying really hard to assume people who think it’s uncomfortable or inappropriate are not doing so out of “white guilt” or anything just because it’s “slavery.”

@opusofthemagnum: i hadn't felt uncomfortable about the slaving orcs thing but when I saw a scene of Talion essentially lobotomizing one, it made me cringe. Mostly because of just how acted out it was. And then later the same one begging Talion to kill him because he didn't want to live like that. The lobotomizing wasn't part of turning him to Talion's side, either.. it was simply a punishment to make an example out of him.

Like I said, even Superman lobotomizing Doomsday physically with laser vision made me cringe in discomfort.

To me, the gutteral response isn't about justification but from just the action. That's why I was curious about peoples just natural response of whether or not they felt discomfort.

If I felt like Orcs were simply code for a particular ethnic group, cultural group, or sexual orientation ( like those bullshit aliens from Avatar) I would absolutely have an issue with it. But really the only cultural touchstone they seem to have is Cockney. What the Orcs represent, in my eyes, are the darkest and shittiest qualities in ourselves. They're an entire race of creatures bred only to be bullies. They're the sadistic, racist, slave taking, murderous side of humanity made flesh. They're like the Storm Troopers or Indiana Jones Nazis. Two dimensional caricatures of humanity's crappiness that only want to kill and torture everything they can find and really enjoy doing it. Fighting them is a bit cathartic.

@sethmode: This is a problem with THE DISCOURSE surrounding media in general, and games in particular. People interpret, "This makes me uncomfortable," as being equivalent to, "This shouldn't be made."

Yes. It's not so much the murder of them as it is the enslavement of an entire populace and mind-fucking them all. I bet all those orcs want to be dead as they slay their brethren not out of their thirst for war or murder but because they can't not do it.

Yes I find it uncomfortable (as I find the concept of subjugating the will of any being uncomfortable), but at the same time I don't have any problem doing it - they are the actions of the character, not me / there is an in-universe justification beyond a simple "they aren't like us" (by whatever metric) / you aren't always the good guy - it's fiction, and sometimes exploring actions/views that are unquestionably evil makes for a more _interesting_ experience.

It's the same way that some of my self-imposed challenges in Hitman might be conceptually uncomfortable (e.g. can I completely clear this room/map), but I have zero issues doing it because that's the world/moral space that 47 inhabits.

I honestly don't understand where people are coming from when they say they have a problem with how you treat the orcs in these games. Yes, they do have personalities but those personalities are all "I may be somewhat whimsical, but I still want to murder you and everything in sight." Orcs are as black as black and white gets. They exist to murder, and you are simply stopping them before they can do that to you. There isn't a complex view of them, they are evil. There isn't a discussion to be had, you are simply murdering evil and bending evil beings to your will as a means to an end.

Also, alot of people in this thread are saying that the mind control thing would be better if Talion were an orc, but that doesn't make sense. If Talion were an orc, why would he want to overthrow Sauron? The whole plot (or at least as far as I've seen) has been based around Talion and Celebrimbor wanting to overthrow Sauron and claim the throne for themselves.

No...just...no.

@fredriech: @stordoff: keep in mind that's why I made the poll specifically about inate feeling of discomfort at any point throughout the game, rather than whether or not people have a problem with it.

There could be people who don't have a problem with the actions (or justify them) but still feel a bit of uneasyness or discomfort, and people who do have a problem with it but don't actually feel discomfort as they play.

It's a videogame. I feel people look far too much into videogames and pick up whatever nonsense this generation feels like they want to pick up on. You can't go one second without the internet being offended by something.

Just based off the quick look, kind of? The orcs are way more humanized in this then in other LOTR material and the main character seems like more of a villain, which is clearly not how it's supposed to be.

A species whose sole existence is hostility. Fuck 'em. Conservation be damned.

I find appeals to lore in response to this kind of question pretty unconvincing. Sure, orcs are inherently evil, but that's only because they were written that way, and writing them that way conveys ideas to the audience, deliberately or otherwise. For example, it suggests that it's possible for a class of thing to be inherently evil purely by the nature of its being. "Sure," you might respond, "but they're just monsters; we all know that people aren't like that". But we don't even have to go back into history to see whole segments of humanity being dehumanised, dismissed as evildoers.

A world-view is embodied in the lore. Appeals to the lore can't allay this sort of concern; the lore is part of the concern.

I still might get it, though. I played a lot of the original.

Not to mention that Tolkein clearly doesn't matter at this point. Shelob being an attractive lady is evidence enough of that, but more importantly even if the orcs were intended as completely dehumanized evil beings, they clearly aren't in the game. They have friends, hobbies, a wide range of emotions. They aren't the mindless fodder people make them out to be.

Not mindless but there isn't a single instance in the game where they are anything but terrible monsters.

It's just now they might tell a goofy joke as they slaughter.

I don't understand this at all. Do people really have no sense of separating fantasy from reality? I mean, I don't get a murderous rage from murdering in games, so why would this be different.

@atwa: I'm sorry for singling you out, but this is the most recent example of this absurd take on the original question. It is simple and completely benign: does it make you uncomfortable? How you took that and blew it up into an analogy for why we don't become murderers for playing games with murder in them is beyond me. It is possible to take in a piece of fiction or art or whatever, and be made uncomfortable by it. This is even if the whole thing is make-believe. It's not about separating reality from fantasy. Literally no one is arguing that they are upset about how this could influence all of the real life orcs in their life. This assertion is far more absurd than the idea that someone might be made uncomfortable by subjugating a race in a game. I am really baffled why this seems difficult for people to grasp, and why they feel like simply being made to feel uncomfortable means a person is some hypocritical monster because there are also games where Nazi's are killed.

It's okay for people to be made uncomfortable. Sometimes Cupheads graphics skeeve me out because I find old-timey cartoons creepy occasionally. I still am playing the game, and somehow managing not to disrupt other people playing the game because I have this feeling.

I think Tolkien once described Orcs/Goblins as, "...degraded and repulsive versions of the least lovely Mongol-types." It was a very different time when he was a writer. Casual insensitivity or iffy phrasing were the norm back then, but most probably not from a malicious place in his case. I doubt anything was even meant by it; a passing remark.

Combined with everyone's hatred of the race in his fiction, and their enslavement by Morgoth and Sauron, there have always been debates about his work and people drawing parallels with slavery and racism in the real world -- you can understand why. Saruman treated them even more horrifically, you could argue, using them like gears in his industrialization machine, not dissimilar to a pharaoh commanding the pyramid slaves. The fact is, humans, hobbits, elves and more are racist towards them, but the question is why, not whether it's true. It is true. Is it insensitive? Depends. Black people or any other oppressed race or creed weren't bred to be a holotype of evil by god-like villains in the way Goblins were in Middle-Earth, so that particular argument falls down before it's started in a way. The real world is more complicated than that. Them being perceived as ape-like, subhumans (Orks/Goblins) that are black to the core and have a history of slavery certainly has room to be debated, however, but this game is about the worst platform to have those discussions on.

It wouldn't be if it were handled realistically, but it's just a quick army-building mechanic. If I were controlling Sauron, warping people to my will to build an army, and if that was shown in a more disturbing way than putting my hand on a face, I could see it. It's all about content and intent. This isn't a serious game, and serious subjects crumble in contrast to video game nonsense instantly.

It's no different than Lincoln in Mafia III forcing people to work for him, and I don't remember people debating about that. Because he's a black character who's also bad, because it's a game, or both? A depiction or subject can't be called offensive if they're casting a light on offensive behaviour. That is different from offensive intent, but feeling uncomfortable about it is natural I think.

1. It's a video game. What happens is pretend. This is not real.
2. Of all games, this one?

@jjweatherman: I have something to say to 1., you never were creeped or felt at least a little bit disgusted out by a horror movie or felt suspense at a thriller? I mean I can watch Horror movies all day and movies like Alien are not creepy at all, I can still understand if someone else feels creeped out by it however.

Also due to the nature of video games you're role plying immersively, which can make things more emotionally impactful even though computer graphics aren't really to replace actors just yet.

Spoiler time: I watched the scene where you dominate Bruz the Chopper and even the Orks are creeped out by Talions behavior. The game is definitely trying to tell the player something there, this much should be obvious.

Maybe I'm not really sure what we're talking about here. Seems to me like people are offended by what they view as questionable moral actions they're performing on creatures in a video game. We're not talking about fear or being creeped out; of course games can elicit fear or suspense.

We're not talking about curb stomping babies here. This is a fantasy world within a video game, and all I'm saying is that I personally find it very difficult if not impossible to be offended by anything that may happen within that context. If others are more sensitive to stuff like this, then I guess that's fine. Just seems strange to me.

@jjweatherman: Did anyone else use the word "offended"? Offended and uncomfortable are not the same thing.

I mean, that in itself is kind of a weird viewpoint, don't you think? We used to think that way about people too, that some subset of people were just evil or stupid or whatever. Tolkien was brought up in a time where that sentiment wasn't just acceptable, it was the norm. Today, most people don't view the world that way. I think it's fair to say that the way Tolkien divides the world up into "good" and "evil", and have the demarcation based on race is uncomfortably close to some really awful backwards shit that went on during his time. It's not out of line to be uncomfortable with that.

That said, you can still love Lord of the Rings. They're wonderful stories, and there's nothing wrong with a person loving them. You just have to recognize where they were written in a certain time and reflects certain attitudes of that time.

Which is what makes the Shadow of War thing... strange... They don't have Tolkiens excuse, these games were made today. Today, we think that if a person thinks and feels and loves, if they feel pain and pleasure (which these Orcs do), then they're just "a person". Who cares how they look? You can't just dominate and enslave them, that's a BAD thing to do.

I'm uncomfortable with Shadow of War, but I think it's fine if it doesn't bother other people. You do plenty of reprehensible shit in video games, I totally get if people don't react especially strongly to this one. I guess I just do.

If we're being technical, yes, someone used that word.

Beyond that, if people on the internet would try to understand where others were coming from instead of just comparing the definitions of words in a vacuum, we'd all be a lot happier.

I think there's a major distinction to be made here. On one hand you have the presentation of an action made by a character in a piece of fiction, on the other you have an action made by a person towards a fictional character. If we're talking about the first one (which you seem to imply) I think more or less everyone will agree that if you portray an action well enough it absolutely has the potential to illicit an emotional response from someone observing it. However I would argue if that's the thing someone's trying to argue then Shadow of War is miles away from presenting these things in any sort of believable way, as it's filled with "gamey stuff" to break that sort of immersion and the presentation itself is extremely simple and not realistic in any way.

I wouldn't hold it against someone if they got that sort of reaction, but we're talking about sub-soap levels of writing and presentation here. This isn't some game that spends long chunks of time building characters and relationships and then has carefully constructed set-pieces and dramatization. It's a game that puts a random character into a 15 second interaction with the player and you get to make a fairly arbitrary choice that has very little story implication beyond this simple interaction. If people want to shift this discussion towards the singular story interaction that has been mentioned a few times, then sure, maybe there's a point there. But that's another discussion (and even then I'd say the writing in this game doesn't in any way earn to be taken that earnestly).

@ares42: I don't really want to argue but I feel like we're on the same boat here. I certainly know some people who do find cheesy horror movies scary, I don't see how this can't apply here, too. But otherwise I agree with all your points.

Spoiler: I'm not implying the first game at all as Bruz the Chopper is in Shadow of War, too. You do quite the cruel thing to him in this game. If you want to see the scene hit me up with a PM and I give you a Youtube link to see it for yourself.

I've played the game, which is why I say that in context it doesn't really have the kinda impact it might look like when taken out of context. It's a silly story-line with what could be construed as an over the top moment. In context it's supposed to be funny.

@jjweatherman: I don't know what "if we're being technical, yes" means. And looking through the thread, the only people that use a variation of the word offended are yourself and people deriding the very notion of being uncomfortable (or misconstruing it into being offended).

As many others have quoted and responded, this is how I feel as well. To me, their just video game enemies.

Though stuff that's more personal and realistic, like the torture mission in GTA V, definitely makes me uncomfortable. The "identify the target" part was actually pretty good, but oh god the rest of that mission. I didn't realize you could just repeat something until the second run of that game on PC, so I just went with water because it's still entirely fucked up but at least they're just wet (and traumatized) at the end?

Meanwhile I'm just fine mowing down endless Nazis in Wolfenstein, or Templars in Assassin's Creed, getting in a shootout in GTA, or mind controlling Orcs, etc, but I'd rather not torture something for like 10 minutes.

So at what point is it no longer okay to genocide a species who's entire reason for existence is to genocide all other species?

Also, let's be clear. Orcs are not analogous to black people. Tolkien has an entire other race that ARE black people called the Haradrim. They are also described as evil and cruel, and if you want to argue for racism in Tolkien's works, they are who you should cite, not the fucking orcs.

@qrowdyy: I think you make a great point, but I'm a bit "yes and no" on my agreement with your stance. Yes in the sense that the British aggravated things, but no in the sense that no, The British aren't the reason India has a color bias. That bias was already there, for the reasons @bicycle_repairman noted. The Brahmin caste did not work the fields, and a sign of their importance and power was their lack of a field tan. That eventually translated into a color bias in a whole host of weird ways, and would have been there irrespective of British colonialism.

Now, if you want to contend that Britain made it worse... no disagreement there. The British liked to make use of existing governance structures to ease their empire-building efforts, and they had no qualms working with the elite Brahmin to secure an imperial hold over the subcontinent. Nor did they have any qualms with exacerbating socio-economic issues by concentrating ever more power in such said elite, since it effectively supported a parallel societal structure to their own (pale British monarchs and elites ruling over an empire and pale-ish Brahmin kings/princes/sultans/elites ruling over the Indians as British vassal states). The British imperialists liked to work with systems and tools they understood (don't we all?), and they understood class-based systems with inequitable distribution of power very well.

The British Empire thus had some culpability, but I personally would never give them sole credit; the British didn't create racism and bigotry in the lands they conquered, since those are human conditions that exist everywhere in every society of every age. Rather, they often found ways to fan the flames to their own ends... and the effects of that behavior still echo out to the present.

Also, I love this community. You son of a guns go in-depth. My hat off to you. Oh, and back on topic: wow, poor Bruz the Chopper. Yep, it does look like Shadow of War humanized the orcs in this game to make the nemesis system more interesting... which added a lot of flavor to it, but man does it make things intense. Oh well, at least they don't mince words about Talion / Celebrimbor being a villainous undead ringwraith who tries to achieve good ends (stopping the genocide of Middle Earth) via some incredibly twisted, evil &$&$. I can dig it, and it's hard to accuse Talion of being bland when he's such a terrifying, bestial nazgul in of himself. Well played, Monolith. Well played.

I think the game wants you to feel uncomfortable about it so that you have an incentive to recruit not endlessly kill, In fact most of the bad stuff that can happen to you only really does when you do kill them. The orcs are weird as a people though, I don't remember but I think they are grown in Vats or something? Some are like two-three years old and others are way older but they all come out fully developed and ready to fight (sounds like a machine right). In-game you can't help but get mad at bruz since immediately after he back-stabs you three to six of your recruited captains turn on you and gain iron will (which prevents you from just recruiting them again). His betrayal being absurd to begin with since every orc in mordor knows full well that killing Talion does absolutely nothing, its just badge of honor to best him but accomplishes nothing.

So would you say that the British were...lazy imperials?

:-D

@bladeofcreation: Haha! :-P Yeah, I should probably change my username. Picked it out back in 2000 when I was a big Star Wars Galaxy fan (I was 14 and the example forum name was RebelNerfherder, so I thought you had to do themed names like that), and it has gotten increasingly awkward and punny over the years. :-D

Not quite sure how to change user-names here, though... or if you even can. I should look that up sometime. On the plus side, your joke was marvelous so it all worked out. hehe.

@lazyimperial: Haha, nice. You can definitely change your user name, at least if you're premium. I did so a few months ago when I decided to start posting here regularly.

@brad: Just played through that bit and it was admittedly uncomfortable; but I think it's clearly intentional by the developers and since it does elicit an emotional response it is, in fact, good writing (in a game where a Giant Spider is a sexy lady instead) which reintroduces that the protagonist is clearly evil.

Softest generation ever........orcs really?

I really don't get how people are coming to this conclusion. The entire story line is filled with dark humor and goofs and gags, and the ending is just the super classic "bully getting his comeuppance" scenario. There's no depictions of actual cruelty or deprivation, it's just Talion wiggling his magic fingers and then Bruz acting like a child who's been punished for doing something bad.

@ares42: Have you ever triggered the demented (or whatever its called) trait on an orc? For me one just says Chop, Chop Chop Chop; Chop; at various different cadences; Bruz is the same way (i.e. his mind has turned into mush). The chop orc (since recruitment) is just out in the world most of the time when I'm roaming; walk on by "Chop, Chop;" fly by on a drake a little later "Chop." Go to start a mission "Chop, Chop, Chop." I've had one other one but I can't remember what he says. It's actually really atmospheric and cool to be honest, if somewhat horrifying. Of course there's an orc that tells you he creates the other orcs from a giant mud hole in the ground so that kind of reduces the human element. This is a dumb topic to feel uncomfortable about in general but that specific thing is done quite well in the game.

LOTR isn't big on moral ambiguity. Orcs are pure evil cannibal monster things, even if some of them are witty. So no not really.

Fixed that for you.

Cant wait for next week when people rise up against Mario for stealing souls/enslaving with his magic hat.

@flashflood_29: I realize that's what people are interpreting it as, but I think that's reading WAY too much into it. Go back and re-watch it and tell me that's not exactly how a child that regrets doing something they got punished for would act (especially the re-encounter scenario).

I wouldn't say it makes me uncomfortable but it is a bit weird how they humanize the orcs a lot in this game but then also encourage you doing some pretty harsh stuff to them (and the whole brainwashing stuff).