Violence and (Geek) Entertainment

[AnotherGuy]

Consequences and realism is something superhero movies are pretty poor at. And dumb down audiences eat it up and keep on supporting the machine so Hollyweird keeps making the same shlock year after year. It's why I disliked Man of Steel. And it's not just violence, it's everything. There is absolutely no critical thinking happening in these movies.

 

[SableWyvern]

I think more media, even media aimed at children, should better show the consequences of violence. Don't go thinking I'm a monster, I'm a reasonable person after all, at least I think I am, so it's not like I want to expose a six year old to an episode of GI Joe where Duke holds Scarlet as she attempts to hold in her intestines after Stormshadow guts her with a katana. While that's a reasonable consequences to having someone slash your belly with a razor sharp sword, I'm inclined to keep things age appropriate. And I do think injuries and even character deaths can be age appropriate for children.

My brother plays in an occasional OSR/Stonehell game I run for my niece and nephew (ages around 9 and 11). I don't tend to adjust the way I run the game for the kids (I'm a little more circumspect in some areas, but overall, not a huge difference).

Last session, my niece used a sleep spell on some berserkers. My brother decided they needed to be despatched to prevent later issues. If my players want to murder helpless foes, I'm not going to sugar coat it so, when my nephew's cleric joined in the slaughter, I mentioned the mace caving in heads. My brother thought that was a bit much. I just shrugged -- he's the one one that encouraged this course of action, if he doesn't want his kids involved in this kind of violence, don't suggest that course of action.

To be clear, I don't usually add that level of detail in this particular game, but if you're going to go all murderhobo, you don't get to ignore what that means.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

realism is something superhero movies are pretty poor at

Way to point out the bleedin obvious. “Superhero” and “realism” are diametric opposites. But that’s not a problem in itself. Entertainment is not supposed to be realistic, it’s supposed to be entertaining. The overwhelming majority of movies are not realistic, the superhero genre is just more up front about it. Man of Steel was a bad superhero movie.

 

[Retros_x]

Entertainment is not supposed to be realistic, it’s supposed to be entertaining.

I think the part that makes me thoughtful is that these heroic violence without consequence or suffering are popular entertainment and the main thing. It feels a bit concerning in current political climate. Were are the big comedies in cinema that I had in my youth for example.

In general I also don't like when the consequence of violence is not shown. What I also would like to see more is not just the consequences for victims and collaterals but also the consequence for the characters and systems and societes who are violent. That does something to people. But there is often not even a hint of reflection of the own deeds.

Makes me love the story of Vinland Saga more, where the main character really reflects on the violence he did to others.

 

[Tonguez]

I just recall that Stephen King did Maximum Overdrive and Tommyknockers which just shows that over the top kills are equally pornographic and movies need to play to their audience be it family friendly PG or X rated gore