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Helldivers 2’s Politics Appear To Be Flying Over The Heads Of Some (www.forbes.com)

submitted 7 months ago by Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to c/games@sh.itjust.works

201 comments fedilink hide all child comments

There is currently a very funny, kind of sad dust-up over Helldivers 2, in which self-proclaimed “anti-woke” gamers have previously heralded it as a rare game where they believe “politics” does not play a factor. Their faith was been shaken by an Arrowhead community manager they believed they found to be (gasp) progressive who was then subsequently harassed, but their head-scratching reading of Helldivers 2 as a “non-political” game is worth examining.

The only thing that makes sense is that these players have the shallowest of surface-level readings of the game. You are a patriotic soldier serving Super Earth. You must kill bugs and evil robots trying to hurt your brothers-in-arms and innocent citizens. There are no storylines to insert progressive causes into, everyone wears helmets so no “forced diversity.” Therefore, no politics.

Of course, this is…wildly off the mark, as Helldivers 2 is about the most blatantly obvious satire of militaristic fascism since the film that inspired it, Starship Troopers.

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[–] littlebluespark@lemmy.world 25 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (9 children)

I don't disagree with this synopsis, but I'm sadly unsurprised that your familiarity with the source material stops at the movie — which, in fact, was preceded (nearly 40 years) & inspired by a (far better) book of the same name from Heinlein. 😅😶 What's more, Helldivers 2 seems to take more cues from the book than the movie, and it does the original more honor than the cult classic did in '97, too.

Lastly, who in their right mind ever expects alt-right fucknuts to parse irony? Isn't that integral to their M.O., the consistent whoosh so frequent that it must be like white noise in their skulls 24/7? (Yes, there's a supremacy joke in there, but I'm too tired to dig it up)

[–] brandon@lemmy.ml 31 points 7 months ago (2 children)

The main difference from the film being that the novel isn't a satire--Heinlein was being sincere.

[–] littlebluespark@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

While it is no secret that Heinlein was a closeted auto-fellating fascist with a fetish for ubermensch fantasies, neither is it argued that he was disingenuous in writing the book as unabashed bootlicking propaganda. His earnest attempt to aggrandize the measuring of individual citizens' worth by hardline nationalism, et al, is precisely why Starship Troopers is an unintentional satire.

The 1997 movie underscores this in its simplicity, and the chucklefucks described in the article above are yet more reasons why the rest of us need to be vigilant against the normalization of this bullshit.

[–] Forester@yiffit.net 1 points 7 months ago

You're not wrong. I have no idea why people are downvoting you

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