Summoning Rebels With Historical Video Games
See the original post at https://peterpunk.substack.com.
Some games are set in the past. “A” past?
Who and what makes history? Is it the kings, the queens, a few heroes, saints? Or the cruellest among humans, which is mostly that very same people? In games there is a popular genre sheepishly shortened in 4X, which actually stands for explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate!
Well, that seems a fit description of the intent of most large power domains throughout history, and a perfect fit for the policies of any expanding power today and yesterday, be it the USA, China, Russia, Israel, Turkey… and one could go on. All large powers are colonial when they can, and always have been. Games can be subservient to that, and proclaim it as the natural and sanctified order of things by identifying history with the hegemonic narrative and celebrating it. To say that this is all there is in war games today, would be misleading and reductive; but the unreflected side of it, shall be revealed and anathematized!
Here is what comes out by searching for the “historical” tag on Steam:
In Oskar Stålberg’s beautiful talk Developing The Bad North Look, there is a remark about axes. Wikipedia tells us that
The most common hand weapon among Vikings was the axe.
And…
Ha! This Wikipedia editor did not read Femina! Those females maybe had axes because they simply were warriors, damn it!
Again, there is that story eight-year-old you heard that keeps rolling in your head that mis-leads. (Read Femina if you are strong-willed and patient, a bit looong.)
“I am the fiery life of divine substance, I blaze above the beauty of the fields, I shine in the waters, I burn in sun, moon and stars” — Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179)
So back to Oskar, who worried, will players complain about my two-dimensional Vikings not having axes? Seems that nobody cared, everybody played. Immersion ( another shaky concept) is then what matters?
The unreflected discourse about history many in the West received is as the glorious world conquest by the… West, and about history as shaped and controlled by concentrated political power, one good, others bad. Sometimes there is some awareness about there being capital (now cloud barons) and finance on the side of it , or on top or behind but never below political power, sometimes identified with it sometimes in attrition, but never for long, and then of course organised, institutionalised religion, again on the side, back, top or below, in front or back, but never far.
I was touched by the beauty and magic of this small stack of stones, that proclaims its heretical force through humility.
In his first attempt at a career, Francis tried cavalier, fighting for his town Assisi against Perugia, probably foreseeing the low-quality chocolate the despicable Perugians would end up producing in the future 😋. Unsuccessful, turned to Christian preaching, and surprised, shocked and startled fellow Italians by actually trying to follow the Gospels’ message in his daily life, bizarre as that may seem for a Christian.
And then, I want to homage the “heretic” of the 13th century that is in the background of The Name Of The Rose, Fra Dolcino The Great, who rejected the Church’s hierarchy, denied the validity of sacraments, advocated a communal way of life, stirred up a popular rebellion, and finally was tortured and killed by the ferocious Raniero da Vercelli, a pious bishop, of course. Dolcino is also celebrated as a revolutionary by Dante, believe me here, you naive and lazy reader under the thumb of my deceptive manipulation. Eco makes a companion of Dolcino say:
On the mountains with Dolcino, before we were reduced to eating the flesh of our companions killed in battle, before so many died of hardship that we couldn’t eat them all, and they were thrown to the birds and the wild animals on the slopes of Rebello … or maybe in those moments, too … there was an atmosphere … can I say of freedom? I didn’t know, before, what freedom was; the preachers said to us, ‘The truth will make you free.’ […] But it’s a way of living, and it is … it was … a new experience…. There were no more masters; and God, we were told, was with us.
(Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose)
Thanks to those “heroic” cavaliers video games celebrate, power at the end gets at Dolcino:
that pestiferous demon, son of Belial, the most horrendous heresiarch Dolcino, after many dangers, long efforts, massacres, and frequent battles, is finally incarcerated
(still Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose)
😬
Discipline and punish today is socially densely practiced from the couch, so for sure about this game, if not deservedly ignored, there will be whining, Becoming Saint is blasphemous, it’s not blasphemous enough, it’s communist propaganda, it’s not communist enough. Told by a crew of idiots, the game will be full of sound and fury, while Brother Sun, beautiful and radiant in all his splendour, Sister Moon, and the stars, clear and precious and beautiful, watch with supposedly benign intent, as our dear Francis told us.
[The game I am developing with Open Lab, Vic Macioci and Verena Kyratzes is Becoming Saint, and will be out in 2025. Here on Substack I will keep posting news about it.]
Originally published at https://peterpunk.substack.com.
