The moment that inspired this question:
A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.
The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.
One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”
I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.
… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.
I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.
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For some reason, there’s this one little throwaway line in The Last Of Us that just lives in my head. It wasn’t even part of a cut scene, just some random banter as you’re walking around but Joel asks Elly after they first meet where her parents are, and she matter-of-factly says “I dunno, where are anyone’s parents?” and carries on with whatever she’s doing.
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Nice note about illusions of Gaia. I still remember that little pig “Hamlet” sacrificing himself. That transformation space with the blue flame. And I can hum more than one theme from the music nearly 30 years since I heard it.
Telltales Walking Dead had a similar impact on me and for similar reasons