Editor's note: Suriel asks a difficult question about the limits of a video game as an expressive experience. I'm not sold on the idea that a first-person shooter can provide the deft touch that a topic like genocide requires. Perhaps it's possible in another genre, but even then, I have my doubts. It seems Suriel agrees. -James
Watching the movie Hotel Rwanda in my AP English class over the last couple of days, I began to take interest in the Interahamwe Hutu tribe soldiers -- more interest, in fact, than the Tutsi refugees they were attempting to kill. I'm not callous to the plight of the Tutsi, and I'm not siding with the Hutu. I just had a morbid curiosity about the convictions of the soldiers and the conditions of a nation that could lead to the genocide of over 100,000 people.
As many of you likely know, the reasons for the genocide are complex and would take too much time to detail here. What's important for the sake of this article -- and how it relates to video games -- is the way that the Interahamwe serve as the villain in Hotel Rwanda: In many respects, they are an enemy more dangerous and unnerving than any of the zombies, armored soldiers, or monsters that serve as cannon fodder in many titles.
Perhaps the scariest thing about the Interhamwe is our inability to reconcile their behavior. With Nazis, most people are somewhat aware that the leaders were horribly corrupt and demented individuals, and the young people on the ground were following orders like any other soldier -- for them, it wasn't personal.
More fantastically, we also know a monster's line of reasoning: instinct. Whether they're animals trying to feed themselves or genetically engineered mutants designed to kill, enemies without rational thought scare us because we cannot relate to their thought processes. Shawn Elliott wrote a blog discussing just this sort of thing. Ordinarily, it is difficult to justify the death of a human who doesn't know any better, but zombies, he states, “are superficial humans who've lost their human essence.” That is why they're one step above animals on the horror spectrum. We cannot understand what being a zombie would be like, and therefore, we fear being like them. This allows us to feel righteous about killing these empty shells.
The Interahamwe soldiers that massacred their fellow countrymen fall completely outside either of these classifications. Most were eager participants in the slaughter and were completely aware of their actions (though the soldiers forced some Hutus to commit murder). This crucial difference creates a gap in understanding their motives and makes them much more eerie. Most of us simply cannot fathom why people would ruthlessly murder their own kind en masse.
How can video games duplicate such powerfully moving enemies? Inherently, they can't: A lot of the fear the Interahamwe generate comes from the fact that they are a real group that committed real crimes -- much like international terrorist organizations. No matter what we do within the confines of a imaginary world, we know that at the end of the day it isn't real. Fiction is certainly capable of conveying the emotional weight of genocide, but no matter how well it does that, it can't come close to actually being a part of the event.
Logically, Nazis would fall under this category, too. But unfortunately, they've worn out their welcome in the gaming world, and sadly, the medium has poorly portrayed the Holocaust they committed. At this point, Nazis have become caricatures.
Another problem specific to video games is the aspect of failure. No matter how powerful a scene in a game is, it loses much of its impact if you have to retry the sequence again and again. Assuming that a video game about the Rawandan genocide was possible -- and that it could somehow pay the subject matter the appropriate amount of respect -- the people you would be fighting or fleeing would eventually lose their ferocity..
Can games create enemies that are as frightening as those in the real world? Honestly, I don't think so. The hordes of Nazis we fight will always be scarier to our in-game avatars than they are to us.
Why would we ever want video games to create a stimulate for us that would be equivalent to experiencing genocide? Being that games lay primarily in the realm of fantasy It makes no sense whatsoever. That's just horrible stuff we want to get away from when trying to be entertained.
I have difficulty answering this. On one hand, I find that video games, were they to have better dialogue and story (let's face it, those are often the afterthought of video gaming), could comment and portray genocide as accurately as film or television. On the other hand, I don't think it will be feasible for the very same reason I've mentioned earlier - lacking dialogue and story.
I disagree with the distinction made between Interahamwe soldiers and many German troops in World War II as outlined here:
"With Nazis, most people are somewhat aware that the leaders were horribly corrupt and demented individuals, and the young people on the ground were following orders like any other soldier -- for them, it wasn't personal."
The complicity of the German people in World War II and the Holocaust is something hotly debated in modern historiography. While I'm certainly not arguing that every German soldier was a Nazi, it's also incorrect to think of all of them as merely cogs in a machine, with moral agency completely located at the top with the Nazi regime. If you read the personal diaries of German soldiers, you see that many of them were fully engaged in what they were doing, and steadfastly espoused Nazi doctrine. Now, that is not to forget the crucial role of propaganda, but at the same time, the Interhamwe were subject to it as well.
@Andrew I actually appreciate Suriel's second sentiment about the ineffectual nature of Nazis as villains: Over the past 60 years, portrayals of Nazis have become more and more cartoonish -- to the point that they are basically the boogiemen of the 20th century. It's a tragedy that it turned out that way because we are talking about people who created (numerically speaking) 1100 to 1700 times the sorrow that the Interahamwe did. Sometimes I feel like stuffing them into Indiana Jones and Wolfenstein has trivialized what may be the single most important lesson in modern history.
That said, I also agree somewhat with the statement you are calling into question. The number of German soldiers was far more vast than the number of Interahamwe aggressors. Also, they were much more spread out geographically. The Rwandan massacre was a localized conflict that was centered around two factions in close proximity. I doubt that many historians would say that a German infantryman stationed in Africa was complicit in the creation of the death camps at Auschwitz and Dachau. That's like saying a soldier at Normandy was responsible for the Japanese internment camps on the west coast.
On the other hand, you are right. It seems ridiculous to compartmentalize the Nazi war effort and the Nazi's anti-Semitic policies...guess that's why people still debate it. In the end, we're comparing the "horribleness" of Interahamwe and Nazis -- why even bother? I say good riddance to all of them.
@James:
I really like your (and Suriel's) points about the place of Nazis as villians in video games. (And I think the point applies to much of film as well.)
However, just to clarify, I'm not talking just about culpability for the Holocaust. I'm also including complicity in the Nazi regime's aggressive wars. The social and cultural groups targeted in the Holocaust (Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, etc.) weren't the only objects of scorn. Slavs, for example, were also seen as inferior, and hatred of this weaker race (in their eyes) was evident in the average soldier in the invasion of the Soviet Union. Basically, there are different levels of culpability in different elements of the horrors of National Socialism -- and the German soldiery, or citizenry for that matter, can't be seen as completely blameless.
"Fiction is certainly capable of conveying the emotional weight of genocide, but no matter how well it does that, it can't come close to actually being a part of the event."
Another problem specific to video games is the agency given to the player. No matter how carefully designers set up an emotionally powerful scene, once you give up control to the player, any reaction is possible. A player could spin his character around in circles, continuously run him into walls, or try to shoot all of the NPCs in the scene. In any case, the emotional weight is sucked right out of the scene.
@Brett: that's true, but there's agency in every interaction with a piece of art. I could choose to look at a painting cross-eyed, or fall asleep when I'm watching a movie, or skip over paragraphs in a book.
You raise some good points, but to me they sound more like challenges to developers than proof that games are incapable of portraying atrocities effectively. Sure, if we assume an FPS that wants to tackle this subject matter is going to stick to the Call of Duty formula, then you're right--it's ultimately going to undermine the emotional impact (especially if tis enemy behavior is scripted). But it's hasty to assume that no developer can ever find a solution.
To use your example of having to try a section multiple times--why assume you'd be given a chance to do that? If a game is trying to portray the horror of genocide, it's trying to give you an experience other than fun, so why not throw out those unrealistic design elements that developers use to make games more fun? I realize that doing so would lead to all sorts of new problems, but that just means making such a game would require more creative and sensitive developers.
I'm not saying that you're definitely wrong--we won't know until someone actually tries to make the kind of game you're talking about. But I hate seeing games declared "inherently" unable to do something before they've even attempted it.