Soulless, mindless, oh so killable

15 Jul, 2026

...but not zombies. Zombies some other time.

This is about pig-faced orcs meant to be killed.¹ Or War dogs from MCDM's Draw Steel. Or a million other baddies that look and act like people, but we are assured it's a farce, a fake, and if you lop off their head you haven't really extinguished a free willed mind just like your own. Sure.

"How hard is it to just say "This faction is evil and they love it. Sometimes people can be talked out of it, but not often."

• Magnolia Keep.

I think that approach is infinitely preferable.

Soullessness/non-sentience are wheezes. End runs around the yawning pit that is our need for a theory of Just War, (or even merely an intuition).

Yet, in trying to protect the fantasies for the player, these games compromise it.

If you're a hero, wouldn't you be even more heroic if you had justification you believed in? What is so heroic about drawing steel against cardboard cut outs?

If you're an amoral, badass, Deathbringer, why dodge a compromised justification? How can you display cool indifference to right and wrong, if morality didn't apply in the first place?

Games don't need to save the audience from this. Who says they need or want saving?

Quentin Tarantino has the right of this.² People kill each other violently, and sometimes it's right and sometimes it's wrong. You can be honest about that and still have fun.