I still disagree (Gaming)

by SonofMacPhisto , Saturday, August 17, 2013, 11:45 (4119 days ago) @ Kermit

Apropos of kinda related, wife and I have been gourging on M.A.S.H. lately. I never watched it until now. Hawkeye is my hero. We need more people like him.

The irony of you bringing this up isn't lost on me in that the subtext of M.A.S.H. (especially the great Altman film on which the series was based) was a criticism of the Vietnam War, the last overt hot war the U.S. fought to try to stop what Lenin started. M.A.S.H. was one of my favorite shows growing up. I even had a Radar toboggan I picked up at an Army surplus store.

I suspect I might view a few episodes as a little preachy now, but Hawkeye was an undeniably great character who provided a voice of conscience, which is especially necessary during war.

The other night I saw the scene where he tears into Radar for being naive. Powerful stuff, I think. Very Mal Reynolds there... which is good. Makes him human, you know?

Stopping barbarism is one of the few justifications for violence, but once the violence starts, there's a huge risk of becoming barbaric yourself. And that's probably an opening to reel this back in and consider Daisy. I definitely wanted more MLK and less Malcom X in Daisy, and perhaps in a different timeline there was a different kind of Daisy, or maybe she didn't have access to tears where she could see a Ghandi or a King in action. On the other hand, maybe a different Daisy did try that approach and it didn't work in Columbia. The effectiveness of Ghandi and King relied on awakening the conscience of the majority, something that might not have been possible in any 1912 reality. Given Levine's penchant for mixing up current historical trends, it makes sense that Daisy's rhetoric is reflective of the Marxist thought that was gathering steam in that timeframe.

Yeah, half the "fun" of justifed violence is knowing exactly when to stop - when is enough enough and your foe stopped? We certainly don't have that down yet.

I like what you said at the end there - makes Daisy a person of her time, which is really all she could be. 1912 didn't have the hindsight of two world wars and the spectre of nuclear armageddon to inspire "oh shit give peace a chance srsly guys."

Maybe Bioshock is talking more about the violence that's inherent in our world, the kinds of issues that have always been issues. I'm thinking of "No Country for Old Men" now, where that old hermit-Yoda guy tells Tommy Lee Jones' character that, "This has always been a violent area." I've never, ever thought he was just talking about that little border-town in Texas.