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Unpopular opinions we have on fiction

"Let's go! open up, it's time for Unpop!"
Alright, time for my mandatory Unpopular Opinions Post. Let's get this over with.
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Here in Unpopular Opinions Poster Civilisation, no one chooses to make interesting posts. It's better to make the one joke everyone knows for the Funny, rather than risk your entire life for just one Insightful rating.
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Down here, us Omelasposters only get one Rating a day. One Funny rating is just enough to get your post:reaction ratio to the next day. But that's the life of Unpopular Opinions Poster Civilisation. If you wanna survive, you have to Unpopular Opinions Post. Every Omelasposter has the same goal, and that's to make it to the top thread, where all the Brothers Karamazovposters live. Except, most Brothers Karamazovposters are born on the top thread. If you're an Omelasposter, there's only one way up, and that is through the Temple of Unpopular Opinions. The Temple of Unpopular Opinions is the only structure on SV that combines the bottom thread to the top thread. To make it up, you have to post an impossibly hard Unpopular Opinion Reply that no Omelasposter has ever completed. And that's assuming you even get the chance to post the reply in the thread. The inside of the Temple is protected by a barrier and the only way an Omelasposter gets past the barrier is if they've earned a gilded post. I've never even tried getting a gilded post before, but if I'm going to rank up to a Brothers Karamazovposter one day, I'm gonna have to.
 
skanszy said:
This is just dumb. Very, very, dumb. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure saying it feels great. But it ultimately boils down to creating a false dilemma between agreeing with whatever ridiculous claim someone barfs up and being a Nazi. "Admit that 2+2=pi or admit you're a Nazi." Just dumb.
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Well... let's reverse that. What ARE the situations where siding with a Nazi is justified ?

For extra credit, find one that DOESN'T rely on something fantastical.
 
(General) you put Nazis as (however marginally) "better" than the minorities they oppress and you might be saying something and it ain't anything good.

Implicit biases and all that.
 
ZeroXSEED said:
Even the opinion between casual player and competitive players can greatly differ
Like
If you want to make good and popular game
Don't fucking listen to the pros

A lot of time these "Video game fiction" are described from Pro players viewpoint
Which is fucking chore and heartbreaking
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You ever notice that most light novels and so on depicting mmorpgs tend to draw ont he really old ones? As in Everquest, Ultima and Runescape old and they are rarily in the post-WoW mold. I wager there is a reason for this beyond the authors being that old. Those really old games with open world PvP and wonky mechanics while often terrible for most peple to play make for interesting stories in fiction.

Setting a story without the threat of pk would drastically lower the stakes which is okay if it is a slice of life type story like Bofuri but pretty meh if you want some juice scheming and drama. Bofuri is badly balanced in other ways with unique abilities that only one person can have which sucks for latecomers but make the characters in the story distinct. Having a slow ass grind leveling experience is not that fun in actual play but less of a problem if the you are transported to the world and spend every waking hour in it. Being able to kite a mob train across an entire zone? Massive trolling issues which is fun in fiction but will make most players pissed. Dropping you items on death? Annoying when actually playing but make for a good motive for pkers to exist in fiction.

My favourite mmo isekai is Log Horizon and I can absolutely see why the game was interesting to play before everyone logged in was transported to it but it is a good thing the story says it is a 20 year old game because no one would design an mmo like that today.
 
Tyran said:
You are an Ukranian soldier and you have to fight alongside the Azov Brigade because the Russians are invading.

There done.
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Alright we have a scenario where it's justified.

Does this mean it's a good thing for authors to choose to write Nazis as a lesser evil? I think it's safe to say that the Russia-Ukraine War is not the average scenario. If anything that you need to find something this specific proves our point, in 99.9% of situations Nazis are not people you need to tolerate. Therefore writers should not write stories where they're the lesser evil and those stories do not in-fact send good messages.
 
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Litrpg's may have started like old school mmo's because writers were old enough to play them.
But by now i think it is purely about people mindlesly following trends.

SAO can get lot forgiven just for being so goddamn old, not all, but a lot.
It was actually contemporary for the kinds of games it uses.
Less so for any of the newer stuff.
 
hghwolf said:
Well... let's reverse that. What ARE the situations where siding with a Nazi is justified ?

For extra credit, find one that DOESN'T rely on something fantastical.
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Well there's the standby of fighting other bigger Nazis. For example, the allies making secret concessions to Fascist Spain (along side threats) to get it to limit tungsten exports to Nazi German during the war. Though I suppose you could draw a line between Fascism in general and Nazism Fascism in particular if you were particularly motivated in that direction.
 
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Fourthspartan56 said:
Alright we have a scenario where it's justified.

Does this mean it's a good thing for authors to choose to write Nazis as a lesser evil? I think it's safe to say that the Russia-Ukraine War is not the average situation. If anything that you need to find something this specific proves our point, in 99.9% of situations Nazis are not people you need to tolerate. Therefore writers should not in-fact write about that and it's valid to dislike when they do.
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I mean depends? Sometimes you are writing with semi-historical settings in which Nazis are around (e.g. aliens invade during WW2), sometimes you have established settings and plot escalation gets you there, and sometimes you are writing 40k.
 
Tyran said:
I mean depends? Sometimes you are writing with semi-historical settings in which Nazis are around (e.g. aliens invade during WW2), sometimes you have established settings and plot escalation gets you there, and sometimes you are writing 40k.
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Frankly at this point this discussion is approaching red herring territory.

I don't care to go down every possible hypothetical about when it is or isn't preferable to depict Nazism as the ultimate evil or a side focus from a worse evil, or whatever. We're talking about a specific story and a specific depiction of Nazism. One where Nazis are not given remotely the seriousness they deserve. Even if it's totally fine to not have Nazis be the #1 villain that would not make Worm's treatment of them remotely less shoddy.
 
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hghwolf said:
Well... let's reverse that. What ARE the situations where siding with a Nazi is justified ?

For extra credit, find one that DOESN'T rely on something fantastical.
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I'm not sure I can do the extra credit, outside of maybe survival against the elements. Otherwise you have JJBA Part 2 and Nazi Zombies, but those fall under both sides up against forces that would wipe out everyone, which I feel is the only real justifiable bar here. That and it's usually only a single Nazi at best.
 
Fourthspartan56 said:
Frankly at this point this discussion is approaching red herring territory.

I don't care to go down every possible hypothetical about when it is or isn't preferable to depict Nazism as the ultimate evil or a side focus from a worse evil, or whatever. We're talking about a specific story and a specific depiction of Nazism. One where Nazis are not given remotely the seriousness they deserve. Even if it's totally fine to not have Nazis be the #1 villain that would not make Worm's treatment of them remotely less shoddy.
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I mean sure I don't disagree (nor really care) about Worm but someone did ask for hypotheticals and I provided.
 
The U.S. teamed up with Nazis to fight other Nazis in the closing days of WWII. It turns out that in the wide-open space of all possibilities, there are actually many potential scenarios in which teaming up with Nazis, temporarily, is preferable to the alternative. It doesn't make the Nazis good, or the Americans bad for accepting their aid. It's just a situation that a bunch of humans ended up in, largely due to forces beyond any of their individual level of control. I think it's fine, actually, to explore such situations in fiction.
 
MC_Lovecraft said:
The U.S. teamed up with Nazis to fight other Nazis in the closing days of WWII. It turns out that in the wide-open space of all possibilities, there are actually many potential scenarios in which teaming up with Nazis, temporarily, is preferable to the alternative. It doesn't make the Nazis good, or the Americans bad for accepting their aid. It's just a situation that a bunch of humans ended up in, largely due to forces beyond any of their individual level of control. I think it's fine, actually, to explore such situations in fiction.
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That's... a pretty bad example? The article you linked talks about how they'd decided to reject Nazism, and furthermore, it's not portraying Nazis as a lesser evil anyways, because the enemy is still Nazis.
 
I think there's two separate conversations happening, the discussion of Worm specifically spurred a discussion on if any piece of fiction could portray Nazis as the lesser evil, since it was claimed that was not possible; I think people were engaging in that discussion in good faith, not meaning to act as though that then justified Worm or distract from that conversation.

My personal opinion is that in general, it's very possible to have fiction where Nazis or neo-nazis are the lesser of two evils, and there are some legitimate cases for writing about some of those scenarios being worthwhile. For example, looking at scenarios in the real world that are like that but through a fictional lens.

The questions in Worm's case then are, first, was the situation one where portraying neo-nazis as the lesser evil was justified? And, I mean, I dunno, I think it was; these were bad people prioritizing a terror bombing campaign, so, making a temporary truce. (Or had the bombing not started yet?) The second question is whether setting up that scenario itself was justifiable, as the author? What was the purpose of it, what value was had in having the neo-nazis not the main antagonist, etc., and... while my memory isn't the best it does kinda seem like the answer was 'Well because the neo-nazis were already there', rather than anything particularly persuasive. I don't really recall it exploring that situation much, if at all, or even driving home how amoral the calculus of the big supervillain gang jamboree meeting was. It wasn't until after Leviathan that anything like that was asked, with 'Should we really put the unrepentant murderous neo-nazi gang leader on a monument, even if he did heroically give his life for the common good?' and IIRC even that was not given much consideration. The final question is was all this handled well, and I think people have made points better than I could as to why it was not.

I don't even remember why Bakuda started bombing everything. Did she have a good reason for doing that? It's the kind of thing that would get one's organization crushed with extreme prejudice. Was it supposed to make sense, or did she just have, like, a supervillain moment and start doing stupid evil? I feel like that in itself is questionable, really. But now I will make my return to frolicking in the blissful fields of not talking about Worm, I think.
 
BurnBright said:
That's... a pretty bad example? The article you linked talks about how they'd decided to reject Nazism, and furthermore, it's not portraying Nazis as a lesser evil anyways, because the enemy is still Nazis.
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I mean, they "rejected Nazism" in that they were running away from the front where they were expected to die in a stalling action as their leaders fled ahead of them. I would take any assertions that they had fully reformed themselves into progressive-minded Allies with a hefty grain of salt. The point, though, is that both the Americans and the Germans had something in common to fight for: protecting the french prisoners in their care. It doesn't matter what reasons they had for doing so, either, just that they made common cause long enough to fight off a mutual enemy.
 
Personally, I do think one stops being a Nazi when one actively defects against Nazi Germany and then agrees to fight to protect political prisoners from the SS. There is a pretty big difference between 'Not being a Nazi anymore' and 'Having fully reformed as a person', after all.

It's also presumably not like they just wanted to avoid dying, since they could have surrendered to American troops rather than attempted to arrange with them to protect the prisoners, probably? Choosing to stand and potentially fight (which in the event they did) was risking their lives for the sake of people that Nazi Germany wanted killed rather than freed, so. Seems a meaningful rejection to me?
 
DoobleDeeDooble said:
Personally, I do think one stops being a Nazi when one actively defects against Nazi Germany and then agrees to fight to protect political prisoners from the SS. There is a pretty big difference between 'Not being a Nazi anymore' and 'Having fully reformed as a person', after all.

It's also presumably not like they just wanted to avoid dying, since they could have surrendered to American troops rather than attempted to arrange with them to protect the prisoners, probably? Choosing to stand and potentially fight (which in the event they did) was risking their lives for the sake of people that Nazi Germany wanted killed rather than freed, so. Seems a meaningful rejection to me?
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Okay? But if the point being made is that teaming up with Nazis is never acceptable, for any reason, in fiction or in reality, but you have a loophole where all they have to say is "we're not Nazis anymore" despite having come hot off a rotation as guards at Dauchau, and have that be totally okay, I don't think that's a serious or coherent position.

I think you can make common cause with people who you fundamentally view as evil or diametrically opposed to your way of life, as long as there is an immediate need that you can resolve through cooperation. That's all I'm trying to say.
 
MC_Lovecraft said:
I think you can make common cause with people who you fundamentally view as evil or diametrically opposed to your way of life, as long as there is an immediate need that you can resolve through cooperation. That's all I'm trying to say.
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I agree!

I just, uh, didn't personally agree with calling those people Nazis after their defections, was all.
 
DoobleDeeDooble said:
I don't even remember why Bakuda started bombing everything. Did she have a good reason for doing that? It's the kind of thing that would get one's organization crushed with extreme prejudice. Was it supposed to make sense, or did she just have, like, a supervillain moment and start doing stupid evil? I feel like that in itself is questionable, really. But now I will make my return to frolicking in the blissful fields of not talking about Worm, I think.
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So for the earlier question, yeah she had already started blowing things up by the time the truce meeting happened, since she had the trainyard encounter with the Undersiders before said meeting and by that point was already sticking bombs in people's heads to force them to work for her. As for why she did it, it... honestly isn't much more complicated than "Bitch Be Crazy". Like I could argue that it's a part of how Bakuda is already an unstable and narcissistic individual considering her trigger, and that she was directly influenced by Lung probably threatening her into compliance to go "oh I see keep people in line with fear and OBVIOUSLY the best way to make people fear is to blow things up because I make bombs!" Or I could argue that it's what she sees as the best opportunity to cement herself as a newcomer to the ABB before anyone else gets any bright ideas to take over in Lung's absence and potentially knock her off or lock her in a lab to do tinker work with a gun to her head.

But it really just boils down to she's crazy enough to understand step one of the thesis (fear can let you control people) and not step Everything Else About Being A Gang Leader (holy shit bro don't escalate too hard or the national guard or worse the Triumvirate will show up to rock your shit, not to mention this is a setting where Kill Orders exist). I assume she thought "aha I have a kill switch so you can't capture/kill me!" was enough of a deterrent to let her go around doing her thing, but uh... let's be serious, what do you think the local Neo-Nazis would do if they found out killing Bakuda would come with a "bonus" of blowing up half the Asian population of the Bay? (Bakuda might have been forcibly recruiting non-Asian civilians as well, genuinely can't remember, but I'm sure Kaiser or whoever could just file that under the price of doing business and spin it with some racist bullshit or another.)
 
Lung was in PRT holding (thanks to Skitter) and the first bombing wave was a gratuitous diversion for breaking him out.
 
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I think that Worm has a serious issue with how it fails to engage with the Nazis as anything other than "just another gang" an issue very much exacerbated by the fact that it came out *just* before neonazis (and neonazis discourse) came back in a really big way.

That said, I think the arguments being put forth - that the team up against the ABB was "portraying an ethnic minority gang as worse than neonazis" - is reductionist and shallow.

Like, Wildbow has actual problems with how he handles minorities, but "one of the evil gangs is a minority" isn't one of them

And it's really frustrating seeing people repeatedly make claims that are reductionist to the point of untruth in order to criticize this team up rather than focusing on actual critiques
 
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