[sergj]

This is the problem with historic games. Either you acknowledge the bad and good things, or you white wash the past. As the author notes at the end: „As I have argued here many times, fiction is often how the public conceptualizes the past and that concept of the past shapes the decisions we make in the present.“

[narrator]

"Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past… The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it." - From George Orwell's 1984.

What's weird is that this was meant to shock, but here we are in 2020 and this seems to be a good idea to a lot of people for some reason. 1984 was influenced a lot by Orwell's observance of Stalinism, where they would edit out people from old photos who had been executed and so forth. Stalin took a close interest in editing screenplays, editorials and even fiction produced in the Soviet Union to make it fit the narratives of Marxism. Why did he spend so much time on all of this? You have to make the whole ideology hang together if you want to transform society. The ruler must remove all contradictions everywhere so that all voices sing in unison one unifying vision and that includes popular art and media. There must be no contradictions!

[throwaway894345]

It has been often observed that 1984 was a cautionary tale, but some have mistaken it for a playbook.

[uyhtgrfed]

Orwell is accurately describing how history is recorded. Yes, all history, well-research history included. History is necessarily fuzzy and non-absolute. Historians work in conditions (social/political contexts) that shape not only what records are deemed appropriate to use, but also the means through which history ought to be recorded, presented and publicly disseminated. For example, Herodotus was a historian who relied in hearsay and myth to inform his largely oral depictions of world cultures. This was the accepted standard of his time. Fifty years ago, history was largely told as a series of 'big men' whose impact was absolute and only resisted by other big men. Today, history is largely social history, and uses lots of sources that account for everyday interactions, and the product is typically a monograph and a few blog posts or op-eds.

To get back on track, Orwell (in this passage and throughout the entire book, really) is basically dramatizing fundamental means of understanding the past, and the effect this has on how the future is imagined. Yes, it is about dogma, but no, the enforcement of dogma does not necessarily have to be as institutional or intentional as you seem to be suggesting. A fundamental aspect of social existence is that understanding the past draws heavily on our assumptions in the present, which in turn are drawn from how we view the past. Our understanding of the past shapes how we reify the world around us, which in turn influences how we imagine future possibilities.

See [double hermenutic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_hermeneutic), [reflexivity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexivity_(social_theory)) and [postmodernism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism) (please actually read about what postmodernism is, rather than relying on popular understanding of the term, which is very often inaccurate)

[Fnoord]

> Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past… [...]

As quoted in the original Command & Conquer!

[BlueTemplar]

They had an actual time machine though, didn't they ?

[Cantbekhan]

“History is a set of lies agreed upon.” ― Napoleon Bonaparte.

[free_rms]

Owell was a Democratic Socialist, FYI. There used to be a lot more nuance to these things before the cold war.

[tarsinge]

The problem is more with the positioning of the game. They want the "Historic" label, but in reality it's Fantasy. Modern fantasy is a fertile ground for fun, diverse and "history inspired" stories. But trying to rewrite history with the excuse of "but it's fiction" is wrong, and I agree with the author, irresponsible and dangerous. But I guess the marketing is too tempting, AC:Valhalla should instead be positioned as Skyrim, not as a "moderately historical accurate game with more diversity".

[watwut]

His complain is waaay more nuanced then that. It is that that while the game acknowledges bad in England Christianity and even adds some more ahistorical bad, the Vikings are treated as basically saviors.

[macspoofing]

>Either you acknowledge the bad and good things, or you white wash the past.

And the way you white wash the past is also very interesting, because it shows the preset-day values of the storyteller.

[raxxorrax]

I disagree with this conclusion because it disregards agency of players. I see more similarities to warnings about the dangers of books in contrast to how it might display historic events too critically or too uncritically.

One mistake might be that we try to patronize people too much and that enlightenment might favor a relaxed approach. I am sure if historic depictions nurture interest in an era, people would search for additional information.

[boudewijnrempt]

As a player you cannot do _anything whatsoever_ to change the setting and rules of the game: you cannot be nicer or less nice to the indigenous people, you have to loot and destroy their religious centers, you have endure having their religion mocked by your compatriots, you cannot convert to the local religion...

You have to play a Aryan colonial invader who disdains the local culture and religion because your own culture is so much superior, and you have to do that wearing the historically inaccurate trappings of of what people a century ago imagined vikings looked like -- trappings that have been appropriated by neo-nazis.

There's no agency at all for players in this regard.

[gherkinnn]

Spec Ops: The Line [0][1] puts a nice spin on just that. You have agency. Just stop playing [2]. It might just be the most harrowing game I've ever played.

[0] - https://store.steampowered.com/app/50300/Spec_Ops_The_Line/ [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dzstxE_5Rc [2] - https://i.imgur.com/VSi8EOG.jpg

[munchbunny]

Spec Ops: The Line was trying to make that point with respect to you, the player, committing virtual war crimes. I thought it was clumsily executed, but it had a point. You knew what you were doing and the game told you it was wrong.

The problem with Assassin's Creed Valhalla is that, rather than presenting you with the option to kill civilians and take slaves and letting you choose not to participate in this aspect of the time period/history, the game is hiding that historical fact in order to let you safely indulge in a sanitized historical fantasy. As a player who doesn't know better (AKA most people in the world), you don't even know the alternative you could be choosing.

[cptnapalm]

My experience of that game was quite different. I found it to be the heaviest handed, hypocritical virtue signaling of any game I have ever played. "Just stop playing"? Are the developers going to give me my money back?

[teddyh]

I would guess¹ that DayZ would also be just as, if not even more, harrowing. I mean, in DayZ you are playing against actual, real people.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7003821#7004805

[raxxorrax]

I meant agency in regard to the conclusions you draw from playing, not that the degrees of freedom within a game are unlimited. You played it perhaps (I did not) and thought that the game forces you to identify with characters mocking something or someone. I haven't played many games that didn't depict such mockery in a negative light if the player has no influence on it anyway.

Some games allow you to have a choice in it, but doing so is not synonymous with holding that view.

> trappings that have been appropriated by neo-nazis.

Don't make the mistake in handing such symbols to neo-nazis. They will turn it around on you. For them Vikings might depict an ideal but they probably aren't interested in a deeper cultural analysis anyway.

[konjin]

The Norse are not Aryans. The Aryans were nomadic horse tribes who lived some 3000 years before the game started and were closer to the Mongols than anyone of recent memory.

[GavinMcG]

But words sometimes mean more than one thing, and for better or worse, "Aryan" is far more frequently used in the sense developed in the scientific racism movement of the 19th century.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_race

[stale2002]

In modern day society, the term "Aryan" has a different meaning than what you use.

Most people full understand what people are trying to say, when they use that word.

[imdsm]

Surely people are aware of this before they buy a game? And I mean, at the end of the day, it's a video game. There are also video games about killing aliens, killing other players, killing monsters, capturing animals and making them fight other animals, and more. You could likely pick any game created and find someone that it upsets.

Nobody plays a game and suddenly becomes the character in the game, no more than anyone reads a book and becomes the character in the book. If someone disagrees with it after purchasing it, then they don't play it.

[throwaway894345]

It sounds like this game is vilifying one religious/cultural group as a whole while glorifying another. I’m not familiar with many games that do this (at least not for real/nonfictional, extant groups at any rate). Some might argue that this is the same things as having Muslim terrorist villains, but the distinction is that these games don’t vilify Muslims in general but rather terrorists.

[watwut]

Player or reader agency is not in contradiction with "fiction is often how the public conceptualizes the past and that concept of the past shapes the decisions we make in the present."

People do conceptualize past based on entertainment they have seen voluntary, whether consciously or subconsciously. Majority of people engaging with fiction wont rush to read about real history. Which is not even complaint, it is just a fact.

Which is why blog posts and writings that compare the two from people who actually know history do have value for minority of those who are curious or interested to fact check fiction. Cause even curious minority wont be necessary interested in reading massive historical book about vikings or England just because they played game.

[AniseAbyss]

An historically accurate game isn't much fun. For one you can't play as a female protagonist.

Videogames can be an inspiration for someone to read up on the real history so its not all bad.

[BlueTemplar]

TIL that South Park™: The Fractured But Whole is an historically accurate game :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1EbPpyq91U