Discussion YMMV / AssassinsCreedValhalla

Yeah I feel that's fair.

I have to say, the examples look rather well-done IMO. Except for the part about the Viking training being reminiscent of Neo-Nazis which, while probably true, seems like too much of a stretch to fault the game for.

The Catholicism entry needs to go. It's uncited.

The first thing that should be zapped are the speculations about "whether the developers would ever consider such a positive depiction if the victims of said colonization were anything other than white Christians" or how many "eyebrows would likely be raised" "if the franchise had demonized Islam or Judaism in such a fashion." These are idle assumptions that cannot be proven or disproven.

^ Good point. I didn't even notice that part.

Also, having read the actual comments made by Overly Sarcastic Productions on Twitter, I rescind my previous statement. She bring up the connection between the stereotypical portrayal of Vikings and the fact that Nazi propaganda greatly influenced those stereotypes which historians have tried to debunk to the present day. We may need to reword it to actually address the points she made, but I think it warrants keeping now.

My issue with the first one is "A Youtuber on Twitter" sounds like as unreliable a source that it may as well not be a citation.

Clicking through it I find it's actually a very reputable Youtuber with a large following but the entry is just poorly phrased because it makes it sound like a random person with a Youtube account tweeting.

^ Agreed.

Typically, we don't allow a single Twitter account as a citation on the principle of the format being unreliable. Personally I find that silly when it comes to Twitter threads that provide sources and such, but it might help to see if there are other sources for this issue.

Actually, let me rephrase that...

To reiterate my point from Ask The Tropers...

To say that the game or its advertising are Unfortunate Implications because they whitewash real things that the Vikings themselves actually did is entirely fair.

To say that the game is Unfortunate Implications because it reminds you of neo-Nazis is ignorant, racist, and irrelevant too.

I am aware that certain neo-Nazi groups have stated that they identify with the ancient Vikings, and this has led to people conflating the two in their minds and thinking they're the same thing.

THEY ARE NOT.

The Modern Vikings are just a religious group who follows the ancient Norse religion and who are proud of their Norse heritage. They are not neo-Nazis, and most neo-Nazis are also not Vikings. (That includes the aforementioned groups who specifically say that they identify with the Vikings. There's a difference between saying you identify with something and actually following a religion.)

The conflation between the Modern Vikings and neo-Nazis is extremely offensive and personally, I would argue that it is NOT OKAY even if you had a real game journalism citation, and especially when all you have is "some dude on Youtube said..."

^ No, you miss the point.

The point is that the portrayal of Vikings in the game is a stereotype that was embraced and fostered by Neo-Nazis to justify their vision of white purity and the "ubermensch" ideal. The argument being made in the tweet is that Ubisoft (despite having real historians on their payroll that should know better) choosing to lean in to that stereotype is a very unfortunate implication.

The only way it would be even close to the analogy about Christians and abortion clinic bombers is if you had a random story written by non-Christians in which clinic-bombing was an accepted and celebrated part of Christian tradition. And it's also NOWHERE near as offensive "in certain circles" (WHAT "circles" exactly?).

So no, your sensationalism is not, where I stand, coming from "a good reason".

EDIT: You removed your post, but I'm going to keep mine as-is.

[...]

> "And yes, being called "Nazis" is absolutely just as offensive. Hell, it may even be more so, because at least being called by the N word isn't also explicitly calling you a mass murderer. The only reason it seems more offensive is because we live in this online bubble where "Nazi" gets tossed around casually for everything people don't like, while if I were to even think of saying something other than "the N word" that would be an instant perma-IP-ban."

We are NOT going to indulge in Misery Poker over whether or not being compared a fascist ideology is the same as a slur that was used to refer to a group of enslaved people as subhuman.

That is just completely inappropriate to this discussion, and the two are not REMOTELY similar.

[...]

.....Look at my name. Are you actually trying to make the argument that I don't know what it's like to be called a word? Let alone the n-word? Also, "hundreds of years ago"? You do realize that the American Civil Rights Movement (when segregation and prejudicial acts like using slurs was made illegal in professional settings) was only fifty years ago, right? The last-living veteran of the Civil War that ended American slavery died in 1956. Hell, my mother was alive when it was illegal for her to sit anywhere but the back of the bus or attend certain schools. And slurs and epithets don't suddenly vanish just because the law made it illegal to say them in certain (mostly professional) settings.

You're trying to compare that word — a word that was specifically created to say "These people aren't human" to a word that describes a Political Party that named itself. "Nazi" is not a slur; it's a title and a description of a political ideology. Even the assertion that it's used to describe "people who did nothing wrong" is ridiculous when there are still real life Nazis (and people who aid Nazis like the KKK) that utilize an almost identical ideology in the political arena. You are seriously trying to say with a straight face that you are worried that someone is plotting something against you because they called you a Nazi when right now, real life unnarmed Black people are being shot by both police and random gunmen? You think that if someone right now used the N-word at me, that I wouldn't be wondering if that person (at best) is going to go somewhere and plot against people like me or (at worst) come back with an uzi and kill my friends and family? If being called Nazi fills you with such dread, but you honestly, unironicall believe that Black people can just laugh about the other one, then there's a serious lack of empathy going on.

Anyway, at this point, I'm getting a mod involved in this, because between this page and the Watch_Dogs one, your tone has been absolutely unacceptable and the stuff you've been pedaling on both pages is textbook Nazi apologia.

[...]

None of this has anything to do with what we're talking about. We're talking about a Viking stereotype perpetuated by white supremacists in order to give credence to their arguments. No one's attacking actual Vikings or their descendants, because those people weren't stereotypes. And NOBODY is talking about "white people in general" in terms of Nazis. You're conflating several different issues.

EDIT: I'm going to leave the rest of this long-winded speech out of it. Point is, nobody is talking about that, and it has nothing to do with the example in question.

And so I'll say again -

I still don't think it needs to be on the page at all, because I feel like it's pointlessly inviting controversy and is tangential to the point being made. However, if people feel like it's absolutely necessary, then I think at the very least it needs to be made more clear that it is specifically referencing the modified faux-Viking ideal that certain neo-Nazi groups have propagated, and not just trying to say that Vikings = Nazis, which is - to me - the way that the current writing comes across.

EDIT: And I'll remove my own long-winded rants because I feel like I made the point and it's not necessary to the conversation either.

But the point is, kinda... that's exactly why I don't think that the neo-Nazi comparison needs to be on the page. Because that's exactly the sort of controversy it brings in.

Let me end my point with this: nothing about the entry as it stands, or has been suggested, states that "Viking = Nazis". That is NOT a statement that has been made or will be made.

To a lot of people, though, that is how it comes across. There's a reason why it got taken down like 3 or 4 times before being brought here, and none of those times was my doing. I'm obviously not the only person who felt that way.

You've essentially gone on a tangent of a tangent of a strawman at this point. To paraphrase John Mulaney, you know how I know Nazi isn't as bad as the N-Word? Because we're actually saying the word Nazi.

Anyhoo. To get this back on track, here's my thoughts on the three entries:

• 1: Fine entry, but clarify the citation. "A Youtuber's twitter" makes this reputable citation sound like less than nothing.
• 2: Fine.
• 3: Example indentation aside, it lacks a citation. It is, however, a common enough complaint I've heard it and I haven't played the game so I'm certain a citation wouldn't be difficult to find. But it needs one.

And the bait there is so blatant that I don't even care anymore. You all do what you're going to do, but don't act all shocked if you put it back up as-is and it gets edit warred over again.

All Unfortunate Implications are going to be controversial, dude. If it's an accurate (and well-cited) representation of poor implications that a group reads into the material, though, then it's valid.

Agreed. "The example is debatable/controversial" is the entire reason YMMV exists in the first place. Anyone who's been following the discussion around the game knows that these issues (of colonialism, religious depiction, etc.) are being discussed and are controversial. For instance, a reddit thread discussing the blog post referenced in the entry got 7,000+ upvotes. It's clear that this is an appropriate YMMV trope. You might disagree with the trope, but again, that's why YMMV exists.

Frankly, I don't see why this is even being debated. Someone thinking that they personally disagree with a YMMV trope doesn't disqualify it. The game very obviously depicts the Norse colonizing England as a good thing, not just for them but for the Saxons too. Therefore, it implying that colonization is a good thing. That's a rather unfortunate thing to imply. We have a blog post and a youtube video to prove this idea isn't the fanciful notion of a single deranged troper, so what problem is there? Given how this discussion appears largely unified in agreeing the entry is solid, with some alterations perhaps, I'm confused as to why the entry has yet to be re-added.

It seems like a consensus has been reached that it’s appropriate to re-add the Unfortunate Implications entry. Do we have the all clear to put it back in or does this require further moderation discussion?

Can't see why not, although the third entry needs a citation.

v NGL I was just going to edit it into something similar if it was added back verbatim. Your writeup looks fine.

I think we also agreed that the first part of the entry needed a rewrite, which I'll go ahead and attempt right here:

• As commented by Overly Sarcastic Productions on Twitter, the "Unleash your inner viking" trailer. The trailer not only perpetuates the stereotype that vikings were violent brutes, but it shows this behavior as being correct. The worst part, however, is that the stereotypical portrayal of Vikings was greatly reinforced and influenced by Nazi propaganda, which Real Life historians have struggled to debunk to the present day. The game and Ubisoft leaning hard into those stereotypes carries with them very unfortunate implications.

Seconded. I’ve seen that entry deleted and re-added at least twice now. And it seems perfectly legitimate to me, considering it’s an Audience Reaction Trope on a YMMV page.