Heroscape 2.0 and Halloween: On Gaming Moral Sensibilities

[IAmBatman]

I do agree that characters have become more nuanced and 3-dimensional. I wouldn't call that a product of political correctness, though, but rather of increased choices for consumers naturally pushing higher quality (i.e. better written) content to the top.

[AMIS]

Originally Posted by chas

Sherman Davies,

Good one! Would that be the original Kane/Finger Batman, or the Frank Miller Batman? (Hopefully not the Adam West TV Batman).

Depends who your president is...

[AMIS]

Originally Posted by 'Scaper94

It's also valuable to note the general shift away from "The Hero" in entertainment media over the last decade. We've been seeing much more focus placed on anti-heroes (Deadpool), grey characters (Game of Thrones, The Witcher), and even villains (Maleficent). The idea of The Hero is, I'd say, on the back-burner of the greater entertainment industry, and we can chalk up a few reasons for this trend:

• "The Hero" has been done. We have Superman, Luke Skywalker, Samwise Gamgee, Link, Mario, Harry Potter - so many characters painted from the get-go as The Hero working for a greater good. Now, in post-modern times, we're shying away from The Hero archetype to explore the idea that not every character is completely, purely good. What might their irredeemable qualities look like, and how can those qualities be brought to the forefront of the character's portrayal?

• The cultural trend of political correctness urges entertainment media to view the world through others' perspectives. Maleficent breaks away from the idea that she's The Villain from the classic Sleeping Beauty story, and in portraying her background and seeing the world through her eyes, she was granted a level of humanity we hadn't seen or thought about. Game of Thrones takes this same idea and runs with it. Where Lord of the Rings highlights the Good vs. Evil (for the sake of evil) trope, Game of Thrones presents most characters as being simultaneously a hero and a villain, done so by giving the audience a look through each character's perspective rather than painting everyone as either inherently good or bad.

• Keeping the previous points in mind, the entertainment media industry realized that The Grey Character is the trend that sells, and I think this is the case because the current audience views The Grey Character with more interest. There's a level of complexity and - more importantly - relatability that can be showcased with a morally ambiguous character compared to The Hero and The Villain. The Last of Us parts I and II are exactly this point. Joel and Ellie (and the many characters they meet along their journeys) are far more interesting (and believable, and relatable) as Grey Characters, and the impact of the stories wouldn't be nearly as effective if every character was presented as either The Hero or The Villain.

I suppose, at the end of the day in 2022, I'm not at all surprised to not see (many) AoA factions or units being portrayed as The Hero (aside from their unique hero status). To me, AH and the War Council are just following the trend of the times.

Funny I remember the same thought being stated sometime in every decade since the early 70's.

Clint Eastwood in the man with no name trilogy was the first major anti-hero I'd heard of. Then Charles Bronson and his 342 Deathwish movies (may be a slight exaggeration on the movie count), Hannibal Lecter, Mad Max, even Severus Snape and so forth.
Morally ambiguous character's that are relatively good guys but not the way you'd expect isn't a shift in times it's actually a constant.

I'm not against it but it's not what I think of when I think Heroscape.

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by chas

Sherman Davies,

Good one! Would that be the original Kane/Finger Batman, or the Frank Miller Batman? (Hopefully not the Adam West TV Batman).

Yeah, I didn't mean this Batman...





...I meant this Batman:

[Yodaking]

Originally Posted by AMIS

Funny I remember the same thought being stated sometime in every decade since the early 70's.

Clint Eastwood in the man with no name trilogy was the first major anti-hero I'd heard of. Then Charles Bronson and his 342 Deathwish movies (may be a slight exaggeration on the movie count), Hannibal Lecter, Mad Max, even Severus Snape and so forth.
Morally ambiguous character's that are relatively good guys but not the way you'd expect isn't a shift in times it's actually a constant.

I'm not against it but it's not what I think of when I think Heroscape.

Luke Skywalker was a simple pure hearted farm boy in ANH, and standing right next to him at the final medal ceremony was Han Solo. You know, the smuggler who shot first.

"Look, I ain’t in this for your revolution, and I’m not in it for you, Princess. I expect to be well paid. I’m in it for the money!"

[chas]

Whether Heroes or AntiHeroes, what we love about our favorites is that they won't break the rules past a certain point. Now that point may be different for different characters, or even change during their development. They have their own code and live by it, even if the legal authorities lose their own way.

That's why we love Superman or Captain America. That may be why I was never into the Frank Miller Batman when everyone else was. I'm not necessarily against (in fiction) terminating the worst villains with extreme prejudice. But thinking about it first, except perhaps in a mass fire fight, rather than just doing it, separates for me the Good Guys from the Goths, and always will.

[chas]

Evil Raelin

Having revealed that I was upset about her change of alignment, I note that Craig Van Ness himself said it made him sad, during the PulseCon panel. On the other hand, Encarmine said she had fallen due to her craving for power and other aspects of her own personality. Its good that everyone has lore in mind, but this is very different than the old animation, which shows her succumbing to the magic amulet of Su-Bak-Na (with Utgar looking over her shoulder). Of course, one could argue that the amulet works more strongly on those with their own evil tendencies, like Tolkien's One Ring.

I also note that as one of the five old heroes from Swarm of the Marro, which now form the Stretch Goals of the offering as appearing now on Haslab, Evil Raelin is the last, final, and therefore Most Desireable Superbonus Figure out there! Whereas Sgt. Drake is the first. Go figure.

[AMIS]

Originally Posted by chas

Evil Raelin

Having revealed that I was upset about her change of alignment, I note that Craig Van Ness himself said it made him sad, during the PulseCon panel. On the other hand, Encarmine said she had fallen due to her craving for power and other aspects of her own personality. Its good that everyone has lore in mind, but this is very different than the old animation, which shows her succumbing to the magic amulet of Su-Bak-Na (with Utgar looking over her shoulder). Of course, one could argue that the amulet works more strongly on those with their own evil tendencies, like Tolkien's One Ring.

I also note that as one of the five old heroes from Swarm of the Marro, which now form the Stretch Goals of the offering as appearing now on Haslab, Evil Raelin is the last, final, and therefore Most Desireable Superbonus Figure out there! Whereas Sgt. Drake is the first. Go figure.

It did seem to start with the pure hero figure through to the most morally ambiguous figure of the 5 in order; Drake the main hero, Sonlen with a dragon, lovesick robot, ninja, and finally evil Rea.

[IAmBatman]

I'm not sure if they're ranked by desirability. It's entirely possible that they don't think the 16k backer goal is at all realistic and they wanted to put the one they wanted to get out there most as the first goal.

It's also possible that something mounted on a manticore is the most expensive to actually produce so they put it at the slot that had the most money raised.

[chas]

Remember the Elf Wizard Erevan Sunshadow? He was locked in a cage by Evils and needed to be rescued in the first DND scenario. If they don't have a scenario to "rescue"/realign Raelin, I'll have to make one up!

Perhaps it should be the final one of the 20 new AOA scenarios. Of course, you can't stop me from playing her as Good. Perhaps the Manticore is just misunderstood...

Does her new mini show her wearing Ki-Mo-Shi's Alignment Altering Necklace, as in the old cartoon ad?

[Yodaking]

Is seems from the comments I've seen made that this was her giving in to her personal inner demons after a life time at war. So no magic at play, just a breaking of ones spirit.

[chas]

Yes, that what Chris "Encarmine" commented. Well, alignment switching is all too common today in comic books and Star Wars lore, so we have to deal with it! But wouldn't a person with their spirit broken want to just retire to an island somewhere, rather than join in more combat as Evil?