• CarbonScored [any]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    I don’t think they “made antisemitism correct”, but I admit the game is strongly based on generic fantasy tropes of the time, and they do fail to scrutinise the problematic part of gnome tropes. That minor part could’ve been handled more tastefully.

    Still, almost every race in that game is shown to partake in exploitative conspiracies. It’s a largely equal-opportunity conspiracyscape.

    • CamillePagliacci [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      The protocols of the elders of zion are literally true except worse in the game. It’s by no means equal. The gnomes are fully in a conspiracy that fully runs the industrialized world, and to maintain their power they engage in stuff that is right out of an antisemitic pamphlet.

      The elves are not a stand in for an ethnic group for which they inhabit all the worst stereotypes. The closest is a read of the orcs as stand ins for exploited ethnic groups under capitalism and colonialism, which given the orcish depiction as stupid but strong is itself racist. But at least the Orcs aren’t universally evil.

        • CamillePagliacci [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          6 months ago

          They’re a big nosed race that run the banks and the government secretly who funds revolution to get rid of the traditional order that threatened them, they subvert other races specifically using lesser races to threaten the otherwise dominant racial group. They’re all, universally, in on it, it’s all planned, it’s all a big conspiracy those who find out are silenced and made to look like fools, those who oppose them are clandestinely gotten rid of.

          All of that is 100% canon, it’s in the game, it’s not an interpretation. It’s just there. The most openly antisemitic shit I’ve seen. Now you can say its satire, and I would tend to agree, but I also think the fact that it isn’t even played as a little bit funny sort of undermines that.