Deus Vult - A Megathread (Read OP Before Posting)

[kiz038]

38 pages of outrage because a game will not include an obscure (and irrelevant) historical term which has become a right wing extremist meme does not signal to me any great desire to dissociate from right wing extremists.

It signals to me that you believe right wing extremists are less of a threat to the integrity of both history and gaming that their victims.

"Deus Vult" is not obscure or irrelevant to us. It's a part of the game and the culture surrounding the game; always has been and always will be.
We don't care if YOU associate it with right-wing extremists, that's not what we associate it with.

The fact that you group us together with real-world extremists, who literally only use "deus vult" as a meme, says everything about you. You are no different than a little girl from Salem swearing that everyone around her is being influenced by witches, and that anyone denying this is also being influenced by witches.

 

[Giob]

And yet Lega Nord still exist, unless you're impying that they don't fit the far-right label.

Yup, it doesn't. The vast majority of the people I know voted for them don't even remotely fit the archetype of a "far-rightist"

 

[Carmichael]

To me, in order to support a company which is fostering a community, I need to know that company would rather have me in its community than people who want me dead. Not including Deus vult is just an empty symbol, it changes literally nothing, but it removes the ability of the far right to pretend that their beliefs are normal and acceptable. Behind all the edgy memes, the far right generally do believe that their views are actually the way the real world works. This belief is often contingent on the idea that all right-thinking people secretly agree with them.

First of all, I thank you for coming out to express your opinion as one of the people most directly involved, that is the most important thing we need in this thread in my opinion.

However, I think you take the problem from the wrong perspective. You say that Deus Vult is an empty symbol, that's exactly what we're saying. Do I think people should be banned for using Deus Vult in a clearly racist/fascist context? Yes absolutely, nobody can deny that. But like many others said, remove Deus Vult and all you'll find is the Far Right finding another expression next week, that's the fear that most of the people in this thread have, that you start neverending censorship.

Like I said in my first post, the Fascists use Deus Vult in their context to express an idea. Deus Vult during the Medieval Period (I don't want to enter the contemporary or not debate) was used to express another idea, and the people of the Paradox Community also use it with a different intent, just like people have use any words at any time to express different ideas, which is why censorship is futile. How many days/month/years will we have to wait until a word is acceptable again if we do not appropriate/take them back in their context ourselves?

Did you feel attacked when during streams people chanted Deus Vult to support a player? Did you feel attacked when you read or heard it when launching a Crusade in CK2? That is an important part of the discussion to have.

Deus Vult is an empty symbol, nobody uses it nowaday in the hopes of launching a Crusade, and the fascist use it the same way Nazies have used Wagner operas to further their agenda. Were they banned nevertheless? No, we put them back in their context because we know that it's not because Nazies appropriate things that these things are inherently evil.

 

[Volphied]

If you really believe that right-ring extremism is a significant force in the modern West then I can only surmise that your experiences have led you there.

Or that you've been indoctrinated by the left-wing extremists who look for them under every bed.

The rest of us in the middle aren't interested in any of that.

They seem to be enough of a force in the west to cause alarm among governments.

So it seems to me that it's just you who's ignoring it, because you find it convenient to pretend it's not a real problem.

 

[Larsenx]

The game you are talking about is Kingdom Come Deliverance. In the case of KC and Witcher 3, the controversy originated from people saying the games and the game developers were racist for not including non-white characters, not from gamers proclaiming they needed to all be white. You've twisted the outcries around to support your already determined view that "gamers" are racists who hide under a cloak of historical accuracy. It's also irrelevant to this issue, which is that Crusaders did use phrases such as "Deus Vult" and that Paradox has previously depicted these phrases with no controversy.

The defence for not including non-white character was that it was more historically accurate for those regions, which is untrue and historically inaccurate. Also the way women appear in KC D is totally wrong from a historical perspective, but the defence was the same.
My point is that the phrase "Deus Vult" as we received it is not necessarily accurate, is more a story that became a tradition and could be wrong. So if it's not necessarily accurate in that traditional way and that's the way neo-nazis use it now why keep it. Remove it or change it in a way that better reflects the historical record. If the problem is accuracy.

Because they recently released a game that was completely unfinished: Imperator Rome. With such a blatantly anti-consumer move, fans are afraid to see that Paradox is willing to alter their games in order to remove something none of their fans complained about while still releasing unfinished games and demanding we pay for DLCs to finish them.

No comment on this, I refunded Imperator before 2 Hs.

I find it funny that you consider "Deus Vult" to be only be "tainted" when used by white supremacists. Apparently you and Paradox both thought the phrase was fine when used by Christian soldiers slaughtering Muslims, but now that white supremacists say it... ooooh now it's just TAINTED. Give me a break with this disingenuous nonsense lol.

Context matters and the present one more than the one 10 centuries ago. Again, if we can question the accuracy of "Deus Vult" as traditionally received and that's the way really bad people use it to spread hate. Why choose to reproduce the message that way, use a more accurate depiction or remove it.

Have you ever considered that Paradox could make a statement about "Deus Vult" but still keep it in the game? They could take a political stance as a company but not have it change their game. That's what we are talking about here.

Yes no problem with that. Unless they choose to uncritically reproduce a message that helps a hate group for no good (historically accurate) reason.

You just said we remind you of when people defended something racist under the guise of historical accuracy: "I can't help, but go back to several times when "gamers" raised the banners of historical accuracy to defend some pretty blatant historical inaccuracies on the racist side of the issue."

Well you put yourself here without my help not what I intended. The meaning is that those groups were defending preconceived notions of history based in their beliefs about race and gender that had little real historical correlation. Maybe because they didn't questions those preconceptions without ill intention, maybe because they were racist and sexist or something in between I don't care. However, they reproduced those values. Not trying to make personal accusations here just pointing out that it's OK to challenge them, like our idea of Deus Vult.

to add to the above, here you are saying that we are on the "side" of people spreading hatred and bigotry in the real-world. FYI: "Dog-whistle" is a buzzword catch-all term used by language-policing individuals to accuse people of supporting ideas without requiring any evidence. You should be ashamed to unironically use it.

No, this is an actual tactic used by hate groups, noe-nazis, kkk, etc. just look it up. This is Lee Atwater part of the Regan government explaining the concept without using the word.

Again not everybody that use ideas that can be considered dogwhistles use them in bad faith, that's the point of the tactic, why it works and the reason is important to be aware of it.

It literally is a censorship issue...

Censorship and violations of free speech come from a government. Criticism, people making decisions you don't like, following their bottom line or changing because of said criticism has nothing to do with censorship or free speech al all.

 

[Volphied]

Yup, it doesn't. The vast majority of the people I know voted for them don't even remotely fit the archetype of a "far-rightist"

Then why is Lega Nord associating itself with the far right EU group Identity and Democracy? Maybe you should actually look at the people they consider their allies.

 

[Giob]

Then why is Lega Nord associating itself with the far right EU group Identity and Democracy? Maybe you should actually look at the people they consider their allies.

Or maybe you should look at their actual policies and at their voter base and their motivations for voting them before accusing all of them of being fascists

 

[FabulousFungi]

So have a lot of people I know. If you're a person of colour, or visibly Jewish, or visibly queer or gender non-conforming

Every perceived deviation is punishable, unless exploitable. That's how the world always was, I'm afraid, and no amount of posturing and word removing is going to change human nature in the foreseeable future. Too smart, too dumb, too tall, too short, too white, too black, not black enough - there's a lot of stuff you can get harassed, beaten, killed and tortured for.

You can say it jokingly, but the problem then is that noone actually knows if you're joking or not, and there are people out there who are definitely not joking.

But here's the thing: I refuse to give the "secretly not joking" people any kind of legitimacy or power, and I would like to use black humour as a coping mechanism. I'm sorry you don't want to see it, but I do. It helps me keep perspective and not to dwell on things more than I need to.

To me, in order to support a company which is fostering a community, I need to know that company would rather have me in its community than people who want me dead. Not including Deus vult is just an empty symbol, it changes literally nothing, but it removes the ability of the far right to pretend that their beliefs are normal and acceptable.

There will people joking about burning people alive, sleeping with their own children, there are people doing Stellaris genocide runs and fanboying HOI Germany. The removal can't even be considered a statement or a symbol without changing the core nature of the game, where, mind you, you can literally spend time burning every single gay, or black, or white male character you can find. The entire thing was done to sate some random journalists' ego and is being backpedalled. It is a right proper shitshow, and, franky, it's quite embarassing (although I'm pretty sure it's going to be named gamers' fault somehow, because insulting and blaming an extremely diverse and broad demographic has always been the way to go for the gaming press).

 

[TheRealCrusaderKing]

They seem to be enough of a force in the west to cause alarm among governments.

So it seems to me that it's just you who's ignoring it, because you find it convenient to pretend it's not a real problem.

I'm not ignoring it; I'm well aware there are more of them now than 20 years ago.

We can quibble about why but personally I think extremism begets extremism and both sides are fuelling each other's rise. The root cause of the problem is group identity. You can't put a fire out by throwing gasoline on it, and left and right are both throwing gasoline with reckless abandon right now.

My point is that racial ideology is abhorrent to Western values and that shows no sign of changing any time soon. If you want it to change any time soon keep throwing gas on that fire.

Overall my point is that we shouldn't acknowledge them in the context of a game set 1000 years ago.

 

[Volphied]

Deus Vult is an empty symbol, nobody uses it nowaday in the hopes of launching a Crusade, and the fascist use it the same way Nazies have used Wagner operas to further their agenda. Were they banned nevertheless? No, we put them back in their context because we know that it's not because Nazies appropriate things that these things are inherently evil.

Wagner operas are banned in Israel.

 

[TheAtreides84]

And yet Lega Nord still exist, unless you're impying that they don't fit the far-right label.

Come on, we were talking literal nazis here. People advocating genocide. Lega Nord even has a black senator. They are just hard conservatives. Don't fall into this psychosis, true right-wing extremism is a minuscule political force in the West.

 

[A_SN]

@kiz038 @moscal @A_SN @TheAtreides84 @John the John - let's stop this discussion regarding Christianity vs Islam - we're just responding to one guy's, who is definietly over 20 posts. Let's get back on track with Deus Vult.

Agreed, thank God for the 20 post limit, really gets in the way of one person ruining the thread any further.

I want to say one thing that's roughly on topic, there's a very good reason why I never bought CKII. Everytime I considered buying it (despite my annoyance with micromanagement, the words "your demesne size is too big" are etched in my mind and I have tutor-choosing fatigue) I read the Steam reviews, and what do they say? That it's a DLC simulator, that the vanilla game is unplayable without the DLCs, that it's essentially a $300 game. Don't worry about Rock Paper Shotgun or Kotaku, the press has become irrelevant and held in contempt, they can say anything about you, it doesn't matter, it's not the 1990s, they're not the gatekeepers anymore, actual users are. And when the users say don't buy it, I don't buy it, if the users say Imperator is an incomplete game and a travesty, I don't care what gaming journalists with a dodgy track record of honesty have to say, I'm going to listen to the honest users and nothing else. Every gaming press outlet can call you pro-fascism, religious fundamentalists or alt-right, that's not gonna affect your sales, the extra publicity might even help, what's gonna affect your sales is your players telling other potential players to stay away. Worry about your greedy DLC policy and your releasing undercooked games, not politics.

Also no one should care what the Christchurch shooter said, before being a terrorist he was an archetypal Australian sh.tposter who said things to take the mickey out of people, like saying Candace Owens radicalised him or associating himself with PewDiePie, both mildly controversial people whom he knew would incur further controversy by him facetiously associating his terrorist acts with them. So what if he said "Deus vult" or "remove kebab", that doesn't mean we should cleanse the Internet of such memes. There are people specifically and deliberately targeting random things to make them associated with extremism, like the OK sign, it was a deliberate joke, the goal was to make people freak out about it, and it's exactly what happened, and the people who pushed it had a good laugh. So when you let such things affect you you are essentially dancing to the tune of such people, you do exactly what they want for their own amusement and also making you look silly with the goal of making people side against you. When you have strict rules regarding systematically distancing yourself from certain people then these certain people can use that to make you dance by reaction to what they do and say. Just ignore it all, you don't have to react to everything out there, just keep making good games and don't worry about politics.

 

[Carmichael]

Wagner operas are banned in Israel.

Just like Nazi representation is banned in Germany, we had enough mentions of that in this thread. It doesn't surprise me that anything that is even vaguely remotely assimilated with Nazism is banned in the Jewish State.

 

[Surimi]

you did not even read the very next line of my post, you're being incredibly disingenuous

You say dissociation from the far right is the norm. Is it really too much to expect you to actually distance yourself from a phrase which, again, is basically irrelevant outside of its use as a far right meme?

I read the next line of your post, and I understand it. It's a slippery slope fallacy, and even if it wasn't I have difficulty feeling upset about it. To be honest, there are bigger injustices in my life than an irrelevant, questionably-historical term not appearing in a questionably-historical video game.

Does it? Alt right types definitely play Paradox games... but they're definitely not playing Catholics or identifying with Catholics whilst they do so, and Catholic/Crusade apologia is not part of or compatible with the ideology they express amongst themselves.

The alt right don't see the crusades as specifically Catholic.

For one, there is a long tradition of Protestant apologia for the crusades. Secondly, when the alt right uses crusader imagery or Deus vult as a meme, they're not really talking about religion..

 

[kiz038]

You say dissociation from the far right is the norm. Is it really too much to expect you to actually distance yourself from a phrase which, again, is basically irrelevant outside of its use as a far right meme?

Yes, it is too much to ask. It has a specific context in the game of Crusader Kings that is completely irrelevant to any use by right-wingers in the late-2010s.

 

[Surimi]

Yes, it is too much to ask. It has a specific context in the game of Crusader Kings that is completely irrelevant to any use by right-wingers in the late-2010s.

And what is that context?

 

[moscal]

@Surimi - do fact, that muslims have problems with jewish radicals decisions "Create Israel" and "Build the Third Temple" should be disabled in game? Because this is similar logic.

Incest, genocides, cannibalism, mass castration etc. are good but "DV" are global problem and risk of world collapse, because few european alt-right use this as meme.... C'mon!

 

[Volphied]

Or maybe you should look at their actual policies and at their voter base and their motivations for voting them before accusing all of them of being fascists

At the European level, Salvini worked to create a pan-European alliance of nationalist political parties. Both Bossi and Tosi criticized Salvini for turning the party to the far-right.

 

[kiz038]

And what is that context?

You can't be serious...
Crusaders used "Deus Vult" and other similarly worded phrases during the Crusades, in the game of Crusader Kings.
Needless to say, this context is nowhere near the context of right-wing extremists who use it as a rallying cry to stop immigration of peoples they don't like.

 

[Volphied]

Come on, we were talking literal nazis here. People advocating genocide. Lega Nord even has a black senator. They are just hard conservatives. Don't fall into this psychosis, true right-wing extremism is a minuscule political force in the West.

Hard to talk with someone who accuses anyone disagreeing with them of "psychosis".

https://time.com/5395444/europe-far-right-italy-salvini-sweden-france-germany/

The far right has significantly grown in power the last decade.

I also disagree regarding your claim on genocide. Far-right groups are loud about wanting to mass murder non-Europeans.