What Ethnic Group Will Replace Nazis?

[Sicram]

I guess the reason why Baltic people are never any antagonistic group is that we're fricken' hard to kill. I mean, just look at Latvia which has been invaded a multum times the past 900-ish years and yet we still exist, along with Estonians and Lithuanians (spelling blargh)like some kind of unremovable stain.

Also, were great pals with at least Swedish vikings.

The French would be perfect as an antagonistic group in games, no one would ever see it coming.

 

[Mouse One]

The problem with your historical examples is that their infractions against human decency took place so long ago that its not possible to get the same schadenfreude factor. It would have to be somebody recent like Mexican drug lords, the Syrian army or gingers.

That's it in a nutshell. Despite the numerous genocides of the twentieth century (Cambodia, anyone?), the Nazis remain the archetype of the Really Bad in Western Culture. Pirates were a pretty nasty bunch, for example. But a few hundred years later, we think of them as fun loving Johnny Depp types, whose worst personal traits are a fondness for alcohol and a disdain for bathing. Yaarrr! The Spanish Inquisition is just the butt of an overquoted sketch. Even Ghengis Khan, who'd massacre entire villages on a regular basis, is a national icon in Mongolia (far from "faintly embarassing" modern Mongols, as Yahtzee asserts).

There really aren't any good analogies to Nazis these days. Terrorists? Yeah, and they get used by Hollywood a lot, but they just don't present the whole Evil Empire thing like the snappily dressing Nazis did. Other super nasty folks just don't resonate with Westerners for whatever reason. Idi Amin and Pol Pot were just as evil as Hitler, but it's doubtful they'd ever make an appearence in a videogame. Perhaps they just didn't threaten the West enough, or perhaps it's that they didn't get their proper comeuppance like Hitler did, which makes for a lack of "feel goodness".

Of course, in the end, it's about a certain narrative laziness. As good fantasy and SF shows, you can have utterly awful fictional enemies that the audience is happy to boo. But that requires the writers to spend time showing why these nasties are so nasty. You can't just throw an SS uniform on them and call it done (unless your name is George Lucas, I suppose)

 

[Namehere]

Ethnic group? I realize the Nazi's hate everyone, but they're so fucking stupid that their iron fisted behaviour has blackened all dictatorships since they were around. People think the KGB just kicks in doors while spouting political crap and killing people all because its how the Gestapo behaved. Nazi's aren't an ethnic group, hell I've heard tell that quite a bit of their membership was partially Jewish! They're a bullshit political movement.

As for who would make enemies akin to them next? It'll either be some country kicked out of the EU due to economic strain, leading to a resentful population rebuilding its economy on war's back, or else it will be the US. There aren't any other real options out there from the looks of things. Although, if Putin's political faction is annihilated in the next election it could be Russia. Their youth long for better days, days their parents tell them they saw - itself a terrifying idea. So many of them seek to form a fascist empire rather then a communist one, and preach white supremacy. The world turns and corpses naturally seem to turn in their graves with it.

Ignorance and poverty breed men and women into enemies of humanity. Seek the man with half a book and you've found the most dangerous adversary you can. Watch Greece closely if you want to find the next major threat to mankind akin to the Nazi's. Alone they couldn't muster what Germany did, but they aren't the only country in the EU suffering so much poverty they could be dumped from it. A unification of those nations abandon by the EU for financial reasons could give rise to the next great enemy of mankind with relative ease.

And I would add that the impossibility of the task before such heinous states means nothing. Population density alone should have warned the German Senior Staff that the wars Hitler was starting were impossible to perceiver in, but it didn't.

Few movements have managed to so thoroughly divest themselves of beneficial anything as the Nazi movement has. And equally few are so damn impossible to apologize for. Its important to remember that this isn't a German thing, this is a Nazi thing. Nazi's suck. People should be desensitized to taking them out.

 

[Falseprophet]

PMCs always make for good evil enemies.

Until you start looking at their invoices and realize why your taxes are so high.

Simple, the French...But as for the French, I don't think there's been a time in the world anyone has ever liked them.

Sez you. I'm halfway convinced the world would be better off if Napoleon had conquered it. But that might be because Napoleon was actually Corsican.

 

[Scarlet Rook]

Militant radioactive mutated furries.

No one likes those.

 

[Sixcess]

Brits.

We have that offhand condescending superiority that drives the lesser races foreigners into a foaming frenzy of hatred, our long imperial history means we've been horrible to just about everyone at some time or other so everyone can be convinced that they're due some payback, and we're a (reasonably successful) multi cultural society nowadays so you can do colourblind casting for your villains.

Also the accents.

I think it's already happening. Killzone was bad enough - sure I expect the high ranking villains to have british accents, but I was genuinely taken aback when I saw clips of the rank and file sounding like british squaddies. (Leaving aside that the Helghast should be the protagonists anyway.)

But it was The Old Republic that really made me think "we're next." Again I was expecting the high ranks to be brits, but there's an imperial NPC early on with a welsh accent, so I guess that makes us all evil now.

Spoiler: Also this

 

[Yankeedoodles]

Why would there need to be a Western European? Wheeler was already there representing the West. Granted Wheeler was a bit of prick, but still...

 

[Formica Archonis]

Why not simply set it in the future and have the enemy be France or Poland? Afterall, a nation's morals can greatly change across the ages, so we can use that as an excuse.

Because if you were selling a book in post-WWI Germany entitled "In 20 Years You'll be Known as a Bunch of Genocidal Megalomaniacs" you wouldn't get many buyers, no matter how right you were.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

My call would be sex offenders and/or religious zealots... though there might be backlash on the latter.

(Personally, I have nothing against shooting a Nazi "below the belt"... but I hate Nazis with a fervent passion, so what do I know?)

 

[ACman]

Romans?

Like future Romans? Like an alternate history where Rome didn't become corrupt and fall?

 

[pilouuuu]

Catholic church. Is there something that is less popular nowadays? I would also add evil corporations. A game about attacking EA would be good fun! Mmm, I'd like an Assassin's Creed fighting those!

 

[LadyRhian]

Why would there need to be a Western European? Wheeler was already there representing the West. Granted Wheeler was a bit of prick, but still...

Because in the opening, they made it abundantly clear he was from "North America". They actually outright stated it. Europe was sort of conflated with the soviet Union and Linka, with the power of wind.

 

[oldtaku]

Always safe: Robots, zombies, aliens, mimes.

But seriously, 'ethnic group' doesn't work, since there's no ethnic group that's genetically irredeemable (jokes here) - it needs to be tied to some strongly nationalistic evil cartoon villain. Which is why Russia is so popular. How about Syria? - that's been pretty neglected.

 

[J.Badlands]

How about Belgians? Nobody would suspect it, and one of their Kings did commit atrocities in the Congo, and Belgium would bind its time while the super powers fought each other, weakening, then Belgium would strike. It would make a change from the Nazis as Villains either speaking German, German accented English, or just British sounding Nazis Aka (Hollywood Nazis). Also Belgium has two languages Dutch and French and it is a country made of two countries, Flanders and Walloonia with two ethnic groups, the Flemish and the Walloons. So if they conquered Europe it would crumble within over a domination dispute, actually that doesn't sound like a bad idea, that sounds like an interesting game, It would be different to say the least, 'Mid Distant Future, the Belgian Empire Conquers Europe but is engulfed in a Civil War, along with fighting resistance in occupied countries'. It may not be great to some or most, but its a change from fighting Nazis, Soviets, Communists, Zombies, Chinese, North Koreans and Occult Nazis all the time.

 

[ACman]

Romans?

Like future Romans? Like an alternate history where Rome didn't become corrupt and fall?

romans from the dark side of the moon.

The problem with your historical examples is that their infractions against human decency took place so long ago that its not possible to get the same schadenfreude factor. It would have to be somebody recent like Mexican drug lords, the Syrian army or gingers.

and no one says the Lord's Resistance Army.

didnt the kony fiasco gave you enough cut limbs and lips to just hate them?

Spoiler: warning graphic image!

I think the problem with a having a shooter featuring the lords resistance army is that you'd just be shooting black people.... Specifically black children....

 

[Casual Shinji]

Why not simply set it in the future and have the enemy be France or Poland? Afterall, a nation's morals can greatly change across the ages, so we can use that as an excuse.

Because if you were selling a book in post-WWI Germany entitled "In 20 Years You'll be Known as a Bunch of Genocidal Megalomaniacs" you wouldn't get many buyers, no matter how right you were.

Yes, but that wouldn't be taking the defeated German mindset into account.

I don't mean a serious future war, but one where the warring nation in question is more like a moustach twirling Bond villain. It could be anyone, even Belgium.

Otherwise we'd have to go the Killzone route and have it be about a bunch of space colonists/miners taking up arms against Earth.

 

[CosmicCommander]

Torture is sometimes necessary.

For example the Great Fire of London was only put up by the heroic intervention of an Iron Maiden on a pesky Catholic, who revealed where he and his pesky friends had set up the bomb.