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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 พ.ค. 2024
- If this video is mildly scuffed bc I had to cook it up in 4 days between 10k words of writing for school, no it isn't :) anyways, let's talk about the Omnics! Recognizing that Overwatch's Omnics are presented as an analogy for a lot of real-world issues is some Media Literacy 101 stuff, but let's do some Media Literacy 102 and explore why it's so, so badly done. Along the way, this video is going to have to touch on a lot of serious topics in order to fully explain the issue with Blizzard's choices, and while I welcome a healthy, respectful debate in my comments section, I moderate it carefully. That's especially true for sensitive topics, and this one fits the bill - this channel is not a place for you to have your heated gamer moments, and just because your fave might let racism slide in the comments because that's still engagement, I don't need engagement that bad.
This was the first members' choice video for May! I'm very glad it got picked, and after how much love the topic got in the comments I wasn't super surprised that it won. The second members' choice video for May, as mentioned in the video, will be coming out later than originally planned - I'm expecting sometime next week, but it comes second to schoolwork and this video's already thrown off the schedule pretty hard. I appreciate my members for being understanding, and in the future, I'll work on planning things better.
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Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
02:19 - Channel Update Stuff
05:22 - Part 1: Who're The Omnics?
16:30 - Part 2: Who're The Important Omnics?
28:41 - Part 3: Uh Oh Blizzard's Racism Analogy is a Flop :(
36:05 - Part 4: Why This is Shallow & How to Make it Better
43:32 - Conclusion - เกม
![Philosophy? In *My* Overwatch? It's More Likely Than You Think [Part 1 of 2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Aa4LSBElIBk/mqdefault.jpg)
If I could clip "Omnics found god faster than it takes a Bronze player to find the fucking objective" I would do so immediately.
I think I’m actually just gonna upload that clip to Twitter or something lol, I was pretty proud of it
At least on mobile, I think the "remix" button actually does let you clip stuff.
@@pennyforyourthots Remember when there used to be a Clip option? haha I guess they replaced it with that. "Remix" is a weird word to use for that though.
@@Shythalia I think when you press remix it actually does have two different options, one of which being "clip". I think the other one is for audio related stuff for TH-cam shorts.
OK I'm at the point where you show Sombra blackmails Katya and I hate how fandom completely miss the context of her "boop". It's not a quirky thing Sombra does, it's her subtly telling Katya she's been spying on her at her home since Katya affectionately boops her daughter's nose. Sombra handing her her daughter's picture solidifies this.
I get what you mean, especially as a Sombra fan. Like that moment shows how cunning and snaky she is, and I *love* that from her - she's someone who grew up learning how to manipulate people, not just hack stuff, and it shows in those little moments where she gets a knife in the ribs on somebody she's talking to. It's part of why the moment in the comics where Zarya reveals that she knows her real name hits her so hard, she's not used to being on the receiving end of that kind of reveal.
@@TheViveros Sombra is literally the best character lore wise from OW and from the OW2 new voicelines and interactions I'm so glad they actually portrayed her as a literal wild card and show how she still protects people who were fucked by the elite with her friendships with Sigma and Baptiste.
@@yoshi12370 Let’s not forget her voice line in the Buzan Karaoke. She literally hacked the system and ordered pizza for the entire neighborhood, and paid their rent.
😂🤣
It really gets you thinking as to why she doesn’t want money, as shown in one of her interactions with Ashe. She literally can just hack a bank and all the money goes poof. 😅
It’s also doubles as a way to “assert dominance” over Katya. Not only through the way above, but also, by treating Katya as a child, it shows Sombra is in complete control.
@@yoshi12370 she's awesome because she's one of the few entirely self centered parties in overwatch. sure she works with talon, but that's a means to an end. she's really only in it for herself, and for information.
The entire "this is why omnics flopped" section is why i absolutely love Ramattra as a character. He is objectively, literally right no matter how you spin it and he is right to get so violent. The problem arises when you realize null sector and ramattra's entire character is often compared to *The Black Panthers* and the Omnic analogy gets even worse.
I however still adore Ramattra's character. Simply because even if this is a shit analogy he is still entirely right.
Honestly if he targeted specific hate groups/legislators he couldn't even be seen as an anti-hero
I am not a Ramattra apologist because he has nothing to apologize for
It helps that he’s literally Magneto and Ultron rolled into one character
I still feel like he made a bad decision. Because no matter how strong they are i feel a Nuke could put and end to this whole debacle. Putting Omnics into the line of fire to protect other omnics while gathering bad press for Omnics who don't even support you which then probably makes the hate worse seems like it'll make the death rate rise instead of drop. I feel like it'd be a better idea if they had a chance to win. Then again I'm not too aware of OW powerscaling so i don't know if they CAN win. Also if he doesn't choose his targets well he could be killing people who genuinely don't deserve it
Like if his motivation was "we tried peace. We tried protests, and marches, and petitions, but still they refused to listen. It's clear now, the only language they will understand is violence"
Like, if him choosing violence and outright war was a last resort that he took because every other attempt to help the omnics of the world was failing, it would be good too. Tie into the idea of "the sorrowful crusader", that he doesn't want violence, but he thinks that is necessary in order for the world to get any better
also thank you, i absolutely hate this trope of "animals/aliens/robots" are minorities. not only are they dishonest but they perpetuate the "one bad apple" bull- hate is not systematic but only a personal flaw to be fixed or defeated by one of the good ones. these stories often have the veneer of being anti-racist and "woke" without actually challenging the status quo. in fact as much as i love the game and characters, a lot of overwatch could be described like this.
Yeah, there are a lot of criticisms of Overwatch's approach to representation or ostensibly progressive narratives that could be made, especially given the other similar games that have come out since that have done a better job with that sort of thing.
Define woke
Someone once pointed out how Overwatch's idea of representation is literally just racial stereotypes.
Like out of the east asian characters we have, two of them are ninjas, one of them is a samurai. Granted, America does have the Cowboy and the Captain America standin, but thats only further examples.
Even while still in Beta, there were people criticizing Blizzard's choices including how the Support roster is predominantly more female in comparison to Tank, Offense, or Defense at the time. Given what we know now, Blizzard wasn't really ever shy with hiding their beliefs about women.
@@nkemnoraulmanfredini7286 fr people just say woke so they don’t have to say socially aware or tolerantl
@@TheViveros Why don't you try to make it deeper with fewer lines and environmental storytelling?
You do realize that game like overwatch have very limited spaces for storytelling right?
The fact that Ramattra is able to talk to the iris should be HUGE. Like, human beings should absolutely be flocking to him to be like "Yo, what is this? Your order said everyone, human or omnic can talk to this and vibe with it?"
Making Omnics a racism allegory is not only harmful it's just so unnecessary to telling a compelling story. Instead of a racism allegory, how about tackling a more advanced version of animal cruelty? That combined with the spirituality of the omnics could lead to a kind of story we've never seen before, rather than just zootopia again.
Racism allegories rarely work and they're in so much poor taste. Especially because they still have us trying to sympathize with those opressing the omnics in the game.
I’m glad the algorithm brought me here because a story of humanity and spirituality would be so fascinating. I’m getting really tired as a black nerd of games trying the whole racism angle and failing miserably. All of your points were very well said!
I'm really glad you enjoyed it! It's definitely frustrating to see games not only miss their potential to tell interesting stories, but then veer *wildly* out of their lanes into a discussion about racism and oppression that they aren't equipped to handle. It feels like a weird fixation from certain writers who feel like they *need* to make their story deeper, when in reality it just undermines anything good they might've had going for them.
the literally wrote a whole short story about the science-minded Symmetra meeting Zenyatta and then left all the interesting philosophical groundwork back in Overwatch 1.
typical blizzard waste
literally the only reason why that short story isn't mentioned here is because if i opened that can of worms this video would be over an hour long and all the extra time would've just been me saying progressively more mean about overwatch's writing
Just finished the video and YES YES Y E S
I hate this oppression narrative with a bloody passion and every time I voice my issues with it I get backlash over it.
And I wanna touch on the last point about how you don't think OW could handle doing actually real-world bigotry and I mostly agree and while on paper they're not showing these types of narratives, the writers love using tropes from them often. The most recent example is how Sojourn lived with experiencing ableism and how it shaped her character and it's really interesting, however it gets held back because OW doesn't want to actually say these bigotry exist in the OW universe. My problem is they want to have it's cake and eat it too
Thank you! And yeah, I think there's a real issue with Blizzard wanting to dip its toes into all these issue without actually recognizing the gravity of them. Like I said in the video, it's not like anyone's asking Blizzard to have the characters sit down for an hour and discuss the philosophy of the world they live in, but like... they somehow always find time for someone to throw out some anti-Omnic shit lmao
I think the most unrealistic part of Omnic prejudice is people just being dicks to Omnics after the Omnicrisis, you'd think people would at least be scared to start shit with a bunch of robots that probably would've destroyed the world if not for a bunch of superheroes.
People used to think we would survive a zombie apocalypse then Covid happened.
Never underestimate the stupidity of Humans.
That actually sounds extremely realistic. Fear is a powerful motivator, and overall it seems like lone non-combat omnics don't pose enough of an immediate threat that a bunch of skinhead-types would be unwilling to start shit with them. Sure, maybe you would not want to fight a Bastion unit, but it seems like humans can defeat a "normal" omnic in numbers.
I just remembered the debate that surrounded that one Google AI about whether or not it developped sentience.
It raises some philosophical questions of "how do we define sentience" or "what makes us human".
Which kinda devolved into whether or not it's moral to mistreat said AI on the basis of whether or not it actually has feelings.
It just highlights how, in our society, if you don't fit the "normal" (or whatever you are labeled as) you must constantly prove that you are worthy of compassion, or otherwise you are to be abused or dehumanized. And part of that "burden of proof" includes being the target of sometimes extremely intrusive inquiries. And if you are perceived as not fitting your designated mold for even just a small moment, then that means you are "faking" it or other such things.
Which is an issue that affect many people, such as disabled or queer people.
What I'm getting at, in relation to the video, is that you can actually use robots (or other non-humans) to tell a story about oppression and such.
But the robots shouldn't be the only victims of this oppression, they should be a highlight of the sort of systemic oppression faced by people in general, to explore how our society's way of thinking just hurts everyone.
Or even just a message on how compassion is always the better answer to default to, how we should treat things around us with respect in general.
I'm expressing myself VERY clumsily but I hope you get the gist of what I'm saying
34:05
If I recall correctly? There was a really good LoveDeath+Robots episode about a renowned artist that would make some of these extravagant (almost absurd even) pieces. It was eventually revealed that the artist themselves wasn't even human, it was a sentient pool cleaning robot that was exploring its existence/purpose through the expression of art.
Eventually? It decided to fundamentally shed itself of its advanced body and return back to its original pool cleaning form. I don't have a Netflix account to rewatch (no more account sharing) so this is just off the top of my head, but I thought this was an interesting narrative considering the example of the Roomba.
*Addendum:* Season 1: Zima Blue if ya'll are interested. It's a fascinating film with amazing art direction, based on the short story sharing the same name. There's also a video essay about it by a TH-camr, Shady Doorags if anyone's interested in further understanding its meaning too.
on the B.O.B. being sentient topic, I think somewhere in the lore it said B.O.B. mysteriously left Ashe during the crisis and then came back, what this means idk but it's something
I so agree with this. Overwatch's lore kept me intrigued since it's conceptually interesting but it's also very shallow and minimal, barely anything's been done but scratching the surface. that's why I honestly prefer game series like Halo or Fallout who actually kept largely expanding from the basic lore they started out with. great video!! :)
Just watched Part 1 of the video and wow there was way more backstory than I expected! Blizzard, where was this in the game? I've never really looked in depth into the lore, but as somebody who has played and loosely followed Overwatch pretty much since launch, it is surprising just how much of this is new information to me.
An interesting comparison to the Omnics is the Geth from Mass Effect. They are initially portrayed as evil, compassionless villains, kicking the Quarians off their home planet (and forcing them to live for generations on ships, which ruined the Quarian immune system) and working for the BBEG. But the second game directly challenges the innate bias against the Geth, showing depth to their sentience as "individual" Geth (Geth are technically hive minds of many individual programs, details not too important here) able to come to conclusions separately from other Geth, and how actually acted out of self defense as the Quarians tried to kill them all in a panic when the Geth first gained sentience. The third game rounds this out with recordings that show some Quarians actually worked *with* the Geth because they realized the Geth were alive and killing them would be genocide. It avoids the Omnic issue because it knows that is shouldn't be an allegory for racism; instead, it's more of an exploration of "What does it mean to be alive?" I think the Geth would have been a more interesting inspiration for the Omnics, and you did touch upon similar thoughts in Part 3.
Anyway, another amazing video, well worth the delay! Take it easy, I hope finals go well!
That's definitely an interesting comparison, especially because it doesn't try to tie it as directly to a real-world comparison. I think stories about how we might react to aliens, or artificial sentience, or anything else along those lines can be really interesting, it's just that too many writers try to tie it into a real-world scenario and it kneecaps the premise.
And thank you, I'm glad you liked it!
Just to clarify a point here, in Mass Effect 1 the idea of geth being more that villains did exist. Shepard can point out to Tali that the geth could be defending themselves because they were being attacked by the quarians. So, this is more to your argument.
The Geth questioned what their existence was with a single line. "Do these units have a soul?" (Which was shown separately in ME3 as "does this unit have a soul?) and rather than nurture this new intelligence, or at least attempt to answer it, the quarian leadership decided it was best to scrap them in their entirety and start again, because they made the Geth to be obedient servants.
It demonstrates not only what it means to be alive, as well as prejudice, but also the effects propaganda can have on said prejudice. After all, for hundreds of years the quarians have told everyone that "the geth rebelled and tried to wipe us out", but never why. The leadership knows the why, and actively chooses not to tell anyone, because otherwise their political position would be jeopardized, and they're already on thin ice for making the Geth in the first place
Tip for echo players: avoid duplicating enemy tanks because you don’t get their full HP. Watch how viv gets melted instantly after copying hog
I actually only played her bc I wanted footage of Omnic gameplay for the video and legit didn’t know how her kit worked lmao, I think I’ve maybe played an hour of Echo total and it *shows*
Babe wake up, new Viveros video just dropped
Just finished the video, and lemme just say that it's incredibly profound. This is EASILY my favorite OW video, I'm so glad I was able to vote for this video and so glad that it won. Will be sharing!!!
Thank you so much, I'm so glad you're pleased with it! Honestly, I think Blizzard did me a favour by forcing a re-write - the entire last section wasn't originally part of the plan for the video, it was initially going to be more like "Let's talk about how there's no timeline where this proposed storyline for Null Sector in the PvE isn't just *full* of terrible implications", but I think the video is actually a lot better without that section and instead talking more about the other elements of the Omnics' concept that work.
@@TheViveros When will the next poll be released? You probably mentioned it somewhere in the video, but I’m interested in the Overwatch and LGBT representation video.
It'll be going live on June 1st at midnight Mountain Time. May was a bit of a weird month for it, but going forward, polls will always open at the start of the month and run until the end of the day on the 10th.
I always found the most interesting thing about omnics was the fact they developed religion
Tbf it's less of a religion and more of a spiritual/political ideology/course, we humans don't have the benefit of having verifiable evidence of the one who gave us sentience or a fool proof way to reach enlightenment
Coming back to this video after watching Overwatch Genesis: That Mini Series (emphasis on mini) was almost everything desperately needed to expand on Omnics in Overwatch and it's sad that it took this long to expand on them. Going from "humans are mean to the murderbots ;___;" to "Omnics are products AND victims of human hubris and are constantly questioning their place in a world where they weren't wanted" hit me like a truck. It even made me like Ramattra!!
i never understood how they expect me to cheer and root against someone like rammattra when his actions are kinda justified because his kind is being genocided. also u were right on the money with the whole logical racism against robots thing like it makes since for a human to be weary of a 8ft tall death machine that was made for war because irl people like me are seen as lesser or dangerous even though we are the exact same interms of humanity and abilities and genetics. great video well worth the wait.
Thank you so much, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Honestly, I don't think I would've made this video if it weren't for Ramattra - everything about his release just hammered it home that it wasn't an accident that the Omnics were being portrayed this way, and that they were planning on escalating it in OW2. He's one of many characters who's just factually correct about an issue of injustice and oppression, so the narrative just invents some bullshit for why he's *actually* the bad guy.
IM SO GLAD SOMEONE FUCKING FINALLY GETS THE WHOLE "How is Ramattra actually bad". All I'm reading is that his story consists of him being CONSTANTLY fucked over and having people die in his life or almost fucking dying and getting tired of humanity refusing to make peace so he turned to violence. Honeslty,he sounds like someone who's just.. tired of peaceful methods physically not showing any results and resents humanity FOR GOOD REASON. it makes me feral when people try to write oppression but immediately go "Well actually this minority person is bad for their methods of protests" it sounds like a "one of the good ones" mentality and it annoys me to no end.
@@Snowstriken The answer is simple.
White.
Same reason RWBY villainized the White Fang. "These minorities were protesting too loud and it's making me uncomfortable."
People compare Rammatra and Zenyatta to Magneto and Charles from the X-men, and that's true because they were inspired off Malcom X and MLK, and as you can guess, that comparison is basically fanfiction. Every villain like Magneto always falls into the same problem of being correct, yet villainized by the story regardless. Lets not even get into how it also disrespects MLK, who did not fight peacefully because he was some hippie, but because it was out of pragmatism.
Ramattra is a villain simply because the Omnics being a limited species does not mean they have more of a right to live than non-omnics. Human lives are not worth less than omnic lives, and vice-versa. Therefore by choosing to kill civilians, his acts can be categorized as evil. Instead of actually seeking sovereignty for the omnics he goes around attacking cities and it's not really clear how is plan is supposed to be the most effective way of getting what he wants. It's just motivated by resentment and desperation. Sure, it's understandable, but it would be hard to call it things like fair, justified, beneficial or compassionate.
@@son_guhun but as the logic goes human lives can recover. Although they have the same right to live an omnics life would be more valiantly and violently defended due to the single generation part.
we could also touch on the points of Winston and Hammond, who have also been given sentience despite being neither human nor omnic
That’s true, even beyond the Omnics there’s a really big question of “What does it mean to be human?” surrounding Overwatch that I think would be interesting to explore more. Animals do already have sentience, but the experiments done to Winston and Hammond prove that they can be brought up to par with humans in terms of intelligence - that’s a whole new can of worms to open, and one that would’ve been really interesting.
The thoughts you shared about how profound it was that Aurora chose to sacrifice herself to give sentience to all omnics moved me to tears (or at least my eyes welling up) both of the main times you mentioned it. With PvE's recently leaked discontinuation I really hope they back away from the awful racism analogy and expand on this aspect of the story through other mediums like an animated series like Arcane or even a spin-off narrative-focused game. There's so much potential here.
Thank you for this video man, because I've been consuming a lot media recently and every time a show tries this racism analogy it just falls flat. What makes racism so dumb is that it's not founded on any type of logic or reason, it's simple hatred bred out of delusion. But characters like Magneto or Arlong despite being portrayed as racist, seem to logically be right. Magneto can control magnetism and Arlong can do everything a human can do - but can naturally swim faster, regrow teeth/limbs, breath underwater, and even have an exclusive martial art technique. They literally are superior to an entire race that can't do that. And characters that are suppose to come off as 'bigots' just seem like normal people with the right to be afraid. There are omega level mutants in the X Men universe that can blink and destroy galaxies. If I was living in that universe with no superpowers, I would be suspicious of mutants too.
If I was a mutant in the X-Men universe, I would be suspicious of mutants, too. Because there are a lot of mutants out there who aren't just a threat to humans, but to other mutants as well. Mutants don't have to be malicious to be a threat - they just have to be careless or unlucky. Remember the film Logan? Remember how Xavier developed dementia, which made his psychic powers go haywire and kill people? Including several members of the X-Men? And then Logan took Xavier away and isolated him from the world to protect people, and kept Xavier medicated to limit the damage his powers could cause. Because of course he did - that's the most logical and ethical choice, short of euthanising Xavier outright. And somehow no-one thinks that's morally wrong, yet they baulk at the idea of the government doing the same thing.
Magneto isn't right - mutants may be physically superior to humans, but they are not morally or ethically superior. Magneto is just as flawed and fallible as any human. And by distancing himself from humanity, Magneto is blinding himself to everything he has in common with regular humans. Magneto is driven by his trauma, and cannot see how the world is so much more complicated than Them and Us. He cannot see beyond the people on either side, to the system above it all. The system that created the sides in the first place, and pitted them against each other.
And y'know, there's potential for a great exploration of discrimination in the X-Men setting. How does a society address the existence of people who are genuinely physically different from each other? How does a society address the existence of people who innately hold coercive power over others? How far can a system go to protect a powerless majority, without harming the innocent minority? But X-Men will never do that, because that would mean acknowledging that mutants are a terrible allegory for any real-world bigotry.
Overwatch has the superhero comic issue, its more interesting in concept than practice. On top of that it wants to simultaneously be this “hopeful future” and be morally nuanced while hitting the pitfalls of both.
Unfortunately, blizzard has a trend of playing fast and loose with tropes and stereotypes.
OW1 stories was all written in past tense and was basically a set up for the botched PVE modes. You can even say that it was meant to be shallow. If you make shooting sentient and innocent combat robot a fun and enjoyble experience
All the ingredients were there but the it was never meant to be consumed with depth. I would even say that keeping omnics within stereotypes is necessary for overwatch as a franchise to experiment and create a fun experience.
Hey man dont worry about the slower release of the videos for this month, finals are a completely relatable, and with the insane 44 minute video essay you just put out, i think ita safe to say that we as a community will be satisfied with the results later on.
It took me a while to notice that all gameplay was paying with omnics
I’m glad somebody noticed! I usually try to pick heroes who match the theme of the video (i.e., the queer rep video only uses queer heroes) or at least use skins that match the thumbnail colour lol
I feel like quite different so this was an interesting watch! A lot of the things I see in game I thought WERE about the humans being angry that their servants had in very short time, made them inferior. Like, if my roomba gained sentience and then proved god existed, and started floating around, I'd be scared, both of my place in the universe and of the floating "magic" roomba. The writings "built to serve" don't read to me as racism allegories, but instead a wish to go back to simpler times, where they didn't have to grapple with the existential dread of being "useless". Same with the "don't need to eat" poster, just wanting a break in one of the few "only" human indulgences the Omnics can't partake in (i know the social aspect but that's why the need for the poster I think). The violent attacks to genocide the Omnics feel to me not a racist attack, but instead an effort to remove what makes them feel weak, to put them back on top. Not condoing violence though.
While the Omnic "race" exists, because there are so many different types from many different sources, it feels to me that the aggression against Omnics as a whole isn't because they can't tell, but instead because they all represent that same thing; They've been outevolved both scientifically and spiritually. What human wouldn't get scared about stronger, faster, smarter, more magical creations that take jobs (and therefore livelyhood but we can't blame capitalism
👀) especially when one is forced to confront such dread.
It's what made Bob and Ashe's relationship so special, even without communication, Bob chose to be with Ashe, to join a gang (and dress up in matching costumes) and seems pretty chill about being a wanted criminal. While Ashe chooses to live in the moment, rather than worry about the future or past, so doesn't need to fear Bob ascending above what he's designed to do.
That being said, I'm not 100% in the story of Overwatch, I'm just coming from the game and gameplay, not really any suplemental material, so it's just my read :P Keep up the good stuff
...Except racist attacks on minorities ARE an attempt to assert dominance by members of a disaffected majority. People who are part of a dominant class, being afraid of their social inferiors becoming their equals, or even superiors, is literally the mindset of racists. The fear of being "replaced" by one's social inferiors is literally a racist conspiracy theory. Omnic genocide is human supremacy.
And racists fear this, because society has taught them that being weak is the most dangerous thing imaginable. That if anyone holds power over you, they WILL abuse you. So you HAVE to dominate others to survive. Trying to cooperate with other people as equals will just lead to you being backstabbed and abused. And they project that assumption onto others - that other people believe the same thing, and hold the same priorities as them. So if black people are ever allowed to become equal to whites, they'll proceed to overthrow and subjugate white people, just like white people subjugated them. Racists think that outcome (which they've invented wholesale and just assume will inevitably happen) is unacceptable, so of course they think that blacks must be kept in their place. With violence and death, if necessary.
If I had a roomba and it became sapient, proved that God existed and started floating around, I wouldn't be afraid. I would be amazed, and curious. And if my roomba was even half as gentle and ethical as Omnic Buddhists, I would be eager to co-exist and cooperate with this new being. To welcome them into the fold of humanity as an equal. Because I'm not afraid of being in a position of weakness. I know better than that. Just because someone is superior to me does not mean they will automatically abuse me. Nor does their superiority make me any less worthy as a person.
It's almost like *I'm not racist.* Funny how that works. If you think the mindset of Overwatch's bigots is relateable, you might want to stop and think really hard about where that feeling is coming from.
I think that OW's main story feels a bit more interesting to ponder when I think of it as a potential reality of what could happen if we as a species just don't give AI the respect we should. It being a harrowing story about how we should be more respectful to a new, sentient being (That we created, no less) is one that I could find very interesting with a lot to say. But knowing that this isn't intentional, and the actual intended subtext is racism, really hurts my ability to take anything away from any narrative they could try to tell, because it is quite literally dehumanizing a minority to try and....what, exactly? I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard becomes aware of this, and when they try to do PvE, just try to lampshade the whole thing instead of trying to salvage this mess. I think, with how much they've pushed this racial tension subtext, there's not really gonna be a satisfying development for this story no matter how they go about it
You perfectly put into words what I've been thinking for years, since I've always been a huge fan of stories involving sentient robots, or rather, a fan of the potential these stories have, bc writers rarely make them more than an attempt at a racism analogy.
Something that always made me uneasy about this whole thing, is the way they approach the antagonists. Both in Detroit: Become Human and in Overwatch (I happen to be a fan of both lol), they initially present them as just the bad guys that we (or the protagonist) are supposed to put a stop to. But then they come out with the "oh no they actually do the Terrorism™ bc they want equal rights" twist, giving us a little hope that the story will have some nuance, to then turn around and go "you still gotta stop them tho" (this is done *slightly* better in dbh, bc at least there you get the good ending by sympathizing with them, but without going Too Far). This feels iffy to me bc I just can't not see the pararels to the way bigots try to discredit any social movement by accusing protesters of being peace-disturbing rioters, and the whole "yeah but you gotta see bOtH sIdEs". The best way I've seen the "freedom fighters that went too far as antagonists" trope used is in the 2005 IDW Transformers comics, and even there they kinda fucked up the execution (or rather, the later redemption) in a few ways. But at this point I'm just rambling, and I don't have much more to say that wasn't already mentioned in the video. So thanks for doing this, it only made me like this channel even more than I already did, and now by quoting it I can better articulate my words when annoying my friends with my "robot rants" lol
I've really grown to despise the "freedom fighters that went too far as antagonists" trope. At this point it feels like the go-to way to create sympathetic villains without threatening the status quo. Why not just make the freedom fighters the heroes for once? Whatever happened to Star Wars? It's made me identify with the villains more and more every time someone uses it.
An interesting branch off of omnics have more sentience than humans is how this transferred to other omnics. Zenyatta has more thoughts on how humans feel and react to omnics not wanting to scare them. While Ramattra cares more about omnics and the dwindling non-replenshible aspect of such life.
I love you. Ive been playing overwatch since around the time Ana and Sombra came out. The issues with Omnics were something I caught fairly early on and Ive talked with my friends about it often. My biggest gripe has always been around the concept of justification. Because despite what happened to the Omnics, The humans hatred for them isn’t completely unreasonable/ unfounded. A lot of stories that attempt to use the racism allegory end up justifying the racism within their narrative because they didn’t properly think things through.
Both Zootopia and Overwatch fall into this. It makes sense for prey based animals to be somewhat unsure about animals that used to eat them a couple hundred years ago. It also makes sense for most of Humanity to call into question the possibility for violence among these robots, when said robots massacred thousands of people and made a good portion of our cast in game orphans. (Sombra, Bap, Junk etc) Racism allegories suck, when you can make a reasonable argument on the side of the actual racists.
Really enjoyed this vid. Im happy that someone else is actually talking about this because, despite loving the game, its been something thats been in my mind for ages. I especially like how you discussed alternative ways for the Omnics to be an engaging storytelling device/concept, in regards to spirituality and selflessness. Great stuff.
Hey Viveros! I dont play or consume any Overwatch content outside of your channel, and I find it enthralling.
Your scripts, editing and performance are clearly cultured for a specific vibe, and you are nailing it. Happy to see you branching out into other content and I really enjoyed the layered story telling to reveal your new avatar.
Keep up the great work, you're crushing it and will go far with your work ethic!
Thank you so much! I'm really excited for what'll be coming over the summer, there's a good blend of Overwatch and non-Overwatch topics I'm planning to make videos on that I think will be really fun.
@@TheViveros How long till the Clue video fails the votes enough times for you to just make it 👀
Thankfully it won this one, so I don’t have to consider the limits of my commitment to a fair process lol
I didn't really know the omnic story until watching this video but my god you are so right Y_Y It's actually a really interesting question to discuss what being 'sentient' or 'concious' is. Like you could explore so many themes like what sentients means to us and what it allows us to experience, is sentients a good or bad thing? and then as an extention to that is there a meaning to life or what are possible meanings to life. Talking about life is actually a really cool theme for a shooter since the game revolves around fighting which creates alot of contrast and would probably create some internal conflict within the characters as they explore the questions further. There's so many story ideas I can think of idk why blizzard didn't go with these themes.
I'm so glad this video won the poll, I've been needing something to help me form together the nebulous, ADHD-scattered Bad Thoughts that were floating in my brain about OW's narrative, and this basically hit on almost everything (even details of the worldbuilding I wasn't clear on because, lets face it, the story of Overwatch has never been communicated very transparently)
When you realize that Ramattra has been the protagonist the entire time. He's only trying to save his people, and if he has to use force to make his people safe then so be it. Besides, all of the omnics would be dead eventually if they went down the shambali route. For a race that is only a single generation, it is better off securing safety for his people as soon as possible.
Of course, in the PvE campaign they made Ramattra brainwash all of the omnics so the audience knows he's bad. Even though it makes no sense for his character. Just to make extra-sure you don't end up identifying with the guy fighting to save a marginalized group.
I feel so bad for laughing at the Mondatta joke at 19:40 .. but damn, ty 4 that one xD
Valid, I felt a little bad for making the joke lmao
34:11 *ButterBot*: What is my purpose?
*Rick*: You pass butter.
*ButterBot*: Oh my God!
*Rick*: Welcome to the club.
One of the things that I was excited for with the PvE was the ability to play as heroes that were appropriate for the mission. It's incredibly immersion-breaking to play as Ramattra or Zenyatta in King's Row or any other character who would not do a terrorism against Omnics for that matter.
That tracer cinematic got me wanting new abilities the mess with visibility. Some kind of smoke screen would be sick, and there’s already counterplay in the game with sonic arrow, infra-sight, and even sombra hack
Love your content Viveros, really do.
However, I lost it at "Omnics found God, with proof, in the time it takes Bronze to find the fucking objective!"
And that was just the icing on the cake of a great video!
I like the idea of Ramatra and Zenyatta as it reminds me of X-men’s professor Xavier and magneto approach to human and mutant relations but it seems like blizzard won’t use that potential fully
This video is on point with the whole idea of using the ominics to explore spirituality instead of a bad racism of analog and makes for a much more interesting one at least to me. Only issue I have with the video is saying Ram is 100% right with one of the reasons being there's no confirmed way to transfer a dead ominic's consciousness into a new one. You could not only my the "just upload there consciousness from the cloud bro" counter argument but there's no way for humans even with reproduction to transfer there mind into another body either so killing them (much less a city full of them) doesn't exactly help his case for anything.
I’m glad you like it, but as far as the transferring thing goes, Omnics aren’t like that. There’s a whole thing in one of the comics iirc where they clarify that an Omnic’s consciousness is tied to their body in some way, not as like an autonomous thing that could be removed and installed elsewhere, and that once the Omnic’s body dies the soul does too - even if the body can be booted back up again or have new parts added like with Orisa. It’s kind of weird, but I’m assuming it was deliberate to try to emphasize that the Omnics are meant to be more human in that way.
Hey, a bit late to the party, but amazing and fantastically made video as usual. One thing I like a lot about your videos is that you zip through jokes so fast that I almost miss them 😂
I think one point you kind of glossed over (probably in pursuit of a different point you were trying to make) is that not only is the storytelling of the omnics shallow and harmful, it's also incredibly *messy*. The preexisting concept of using robots for a racism analogy is flawed and harmful, and it's shallow because there are so many interesting questions that could be asked or presented but just aren't even considered, and ON TOP OF ALL OF THAT, all of the storytelling that IS explored is *incredibly messy*. There's so many loose ends, plot holes, and open threads that just don't make any sense.
You kind of went over a little bit of this while discussing "who is actually considered an omnic, and who is not?" and it's like, every possible answer to that question raises interesting implications, but any time they DO answer that question, there comes another bit of story that kind of just... answers the question differently.
"Ah, yes, the omnics were the original robots from the Omnium corp, pre-omnic crisis, that gained sentience later because of Aurora's sacrifice. Except now we include this E54 that gained sentience just spontaneously (no we won't acknowledge how that worked). And the omnium robots that were created later because of the Null Sector uprising don't actually count as omnics, stated by the one that created them. Except this one specific OR15 model that was rebuilt with a personality by someone else (this one will start attacking humans if she loses a component that gives her compassion. Also we will not explain how that works either). Also the person that made Aurora also made a second bot secretly, and that one also has sentience. But only kind of, because she just copies who she's around. And she also has limiters to make sure she won't go bonkers, whoops."
And also like, where is the exposition about Anubis amidst all of this? Like, Anubis is so utterly obviously an important and relevant figure, so much that Ramattra himself says that Pharah should have destroyed Anubis instead of watching over it, but like... Anubis gets no *actual* exposition. People talk *about* Anubis, *around* Anubis, and *of* Anubis, but nothing actually gets said.
I think you mentioned this somewhere in this comment section, but any interesting concept that gets introduced in this game's storytelling and lore ends up getting demoted to just a vague implication of that idea, almost like Blizzard is trying to have their cake and eat it too. It's almost as if they like the *idea* of exploring these concepts, but when it actually comes down to putting pen to paper, they lose interest faster than me with my ADHD any time I'm given a homework assignment. It's almost... The only word I can think of, is like, "corporate". It's a lot of just pretending to say things, without actually saying anything. And it's unfortunate, because I KNOW they have talented writers on their team.
Thank you! And yeah, I kinda glossed over the messiness just because I felt like I was sort of implicitly pointing out how messy it was by explaining the whole unhinged thing lmao
Also the stuff about Anubis is a good point, for such an obviously important figure he *really* doesn't get much airtime. It was hard to find enough info about him to even talk about him here, and there's very few images of him out there to use.
I hate using omnics as symbols for race struggles in the game. Partially because it paints me as a bad guy for disagreeing with the opinion that they deserve rights. Even if they are truly sentient, they were still produced by big corporation. The idea that a company can mass produce life, and then that ai gets a say in democracy, is crazy to me. I definitely wouldn't be giving rights to robots made by Lockheed Martin. It's hard to say so definitively that they even have sentience. There are a lot of examples of them showing to have sentience, but I feel it's within the power of the elites to try and gaslight and control the narrative of the world. For example only omnics and sigma have been seen to have encounters with the Iris, and this concept seems to be the cementing factor in you seeing them as sentient. The fact they can tap into a new form of spirituality not yet seen, must mean they're onto something. That or they are being subconsciously motivated by their programming. Interesting how the only human to experience this was Sigma, a person who has been experimented on and had his mind dramatically altered by Talon. If a shadowy entity in the overwatch universe, had their hands in many different organizations, and had access to tech we cant even imagine, their ability to gaslight the people would be very strong. Possible sigmas encounter with the iris was a sort of memory modification. Possible all examples of omnic sentience are just very good ai. Very possible people profit off war, and want to control democracy, and will try to lie to the people. And I've moved away from seeing over watch lore the intended way, which is the shitty analogy for race issues. And more into my own story of class struggle, where the elites care not for the meek.
This is actually a really interesting interpretation of the topic, and I really hadn’t considered it. I think the main difference in Overwatch is that Omnica as a corporation dissolved decades before they achieved their sentience and the Omniums are incapable of producing more Omnics who meet the standard, but it does actually raise a really interesting question around the nature of capitalism and AI in terms of human rights and democracy. If those little Boston Dynamics robot dogs suddenly became sentient (or at least convincingly passed whatever tests we created) and demanded voting rights, and especially if we knew that these companies could still manufacture more of them, it would be a genuinely challenging question.
I almost resent comments like this, because they make me think “Shit, I wish I’d thought of this so I could’ve included it in the video, it would’ve made it way more interesting” 😂. I do really appreciate it though, so thank you!
I think this is really similar to Torbjorn’s pov at least before he met Bastion. As someone who was at least kinda involved in the design or construction of the omniums, he didn’t trust Omnics to be truly sentient and figured they are still ultimately slaves to their programming. It’s only until Bastion directly contradicts this that he starts changing his mind and gives him a funny hat.
I love ALL your video essays and this one was WONDERFUL. I'm so glad you touched on this topic because the omnics are my favorite part of OW and it could have been SO MUCH BETTER. You're right about everything you say and you've given me food for thought also. Best thing to get
33:00 yeag ramattra was built to SERVE 💅💅🌈
Dang, you went all out on this one. Awesome work at explaining your points, really interesting to be honest. 🤔
Your argument of "you can't use an allegory for racism when it's a whole other species" reminded me of something. A while ago I played a VN that honestly, probably accidentally did something like this. There was a guy who got brought in from another reality and was essentially immortal and could survive anything, or if he did die just wake up a few minutes later, and because of extenuating circumstances he was constantly sent back in time. At one point the antagonist goes off on him, calling him inhuman and comparing him to an existing monster that shares his immortality, alienating him from the people that do exist in this world, because he "doesn't belong here"... but he's still human. He still breathes, and bleeds, and "needs" to eat (could "survive" without it, but he would eventually starve and die). This is also how the protagonist responds to these statements: "he belongs here just as much as anyone, immortality is just his personal quirk". I genuinely don't think the game even intended to draw parallels to racism here, especially since there is actually an implied case of racism a chapter or so later, but I think as far as allegories for racism go, that's about as far as you can stray from making it about actual racism until you lose the argument by bringing in a different species.
you and GSraider are single handedly carrying ow content
A Roomba was made to serve
Roomba: Periodt poo
Some version of this came to my mind every time I said "built/made to serve" and honestly it's probably a sign that I need to be less online lmao
Excellent video, well presented in that it has a lot of well told information but also it is summarized without feeling like a segment goes on for too long. You also pointed out insanely cool ideas for storytelling that Blizzard could've had with the omnics (that we all know FULL WELL unfortunately will probably never happen).
(bit of a ramble here sorry) The biggest problem with Overwatch's narrative as a whole imo is that it tries too hard to be serious and deep and thus mishandles difficult topics with shitty allegories when they could've used and developed other concepts and/or gone a more goofier route. Like TF2, THE GOAT of goofy aah casual team based fps manages to have a deeper, more emotional lore.
Anyway top tier 10/10 thank you so much for creating a well made and thought provoking video 👍
Part 4 made me constantly think of the Geth in Mass Effect, because they pretty much went through what you were describing - the Quarians panicked when the Geth developed (still limited) sentience and asks "Hey, do we have souls?", tried to eliminate their creations and then the whole thing resolved in the good ending by one of them sacrificing themself to give the other Geth "true intelligence" aka autonomous sentience. The Geth were never an allegory for racism, but instead an allegory for sentience/personhood
Love the vid. And the analogy too, building a deep pool but not filling it with enough water and telling people to dive in. Also probs part of the reason I left Overwatch as a game.
I really like stories, and unfortunately or fortunately depending how you look at it, racism in most cases cannot be told well in a story format, and (i'll make the claim) never well in a story using analogies like robots /animals/ aliens/ mythical races (looking at you zootopia, and bright) because stories like reason and structure. Good stories have arcs and trajectories that are at least in some part predictable and understandable. It's why we have tropes, they're structures of the story telling process people have come to recognize. Racism and the structure of racism and other bigoted ideologies are inherently Illogical. They are unreasonable ideologies, as in you cannot rationalize or reason with it. ie that guy you know is clearly racist but likes a particular black guy.
The best way to tell a racist or other bigoted "story" is either a) through a pov of a actual person (an autobiography) or b) be about people with a nonsensible conflict and structure (probably asking people who actually experienced bigotry for a lot of help in getting anything deeper/more emotional then statistics right.)
Wow, I didn't realize the omnics had that many interesting concepts behind them and how little they were elaborated on. Like they have quite the facinating amount of setup, but then the storytelling just goes for standard racism with no regard to the unique factors at play in this scenario.
Speaking of racism, this video was quite the eye opener as to why picking an entirely different species to be the subject of racism in an analogy to real world racism is such a terrible idea. It somehow did not occur to me, that it provides the possibility for making racism to be grounded in logic, which completely misses the point of just how utterly baseless and all the more horrible real world racism is.
This does make me wonder, however; this segregation between humans and omnics is understandable to happen, because humans can be incredibly dumb and as you said, human like to hold a grudge. So, even if the omnics did personally play no part in the omnic uprising besides their bodies being the weapons of Anubis' war, there would absolutely be quite a significant chunk of the non-omnic population wishing to see them distant or gone entirely.
My question here is: How does one depict a multi-species society with social inequality problems between the species without ending up accidentally making a poorly thought out analogy for real world racism?
I think the main thing is that it’s in how you depict the tension. It would definitely exist, but it would be a different kind of thing - you could compare it to the difference in how racism and homophobia manifest. Are they both still bigotries? Yes, but the issues surrounding them are very different even when they’re on a similar topic like marriage rights. The fight for equal rights on interracial marriage in the United States versus the fight for same-sex marriage in the United States are both still fundamentally about equal marriage rights, but are both different from each other in terms of the motivations, rhetoric, and strategies of both sides - and both fights are different than the fight for equal marriage rights for disabled people.
A multi-species society would definitely have tensions, but it’s about understanding where that tension would come from and how it would manifest. Trying to map it onto the tensions that exist between humans just isn’t the way to do it because those tensions are context-sensitive - even if we’re just talking racism, it still manifests very differently between different groups and in different countries, and it’s better to try to tell an original story rather than rely on analogies that don’t work without their associated context.
Nicely analyzed man; this and the magic video go hard. The robot minority analogy falls so flat and it’s odd to me how hard people keep pushing it; the Omnic spirituality angle is definitely more intriguing, same with the other video and the idea of introducing unique magic(s) to the setting instead of weirdly fetishizing Japan.
Makes me happy that I’m going along that route with a mechanical species in my own setting I’m currently working on, as well as how the mystical/spiritual elements are being handled… Granted, the latter is a bit out there.
lmao "Gob forbid women have hobbies" 14:10
This channel supports women's rights and women's wrongs, and surely treason has to fall under one of those two
This is a great analysis and critique while also being the best summary of everything to know about Omnics in Overwatch, rewatching this while watching Genesis lol
You have such a pleasant narration voice that I sat through all 5 mins of your channel updates despite having never come across the channel before aha
found ur channel and i cant wait to watch every single video u put out!! love ow
May I just say, delays or not I'm really impressed with how you're running this channel!
Do you think that the omnics could be altered as simply a device to tell a high-fantasy, fable-esque, think piece on the matter of AI advancement and the possibility of creating new sentience?
I commented before I finished the video 😅
Great minds think alike lol
This was an amazing video, I just found your channel and wasn't expecting to watch it till the end. You've earned a new subsrciber, keep up the great work!
I've never had my eyes opened SO HARD thankyouverymuch~
As someone else pointed out, overwatch is unironically offensive in its characters. All the Japanese characters are ninjas in this future society? The western cowboys, doom fist and orisas overwatch 2 designs being heavily African as if they have no other defining characteristics. The korean gamer. All the other characters that don’t fall under racial stereotypes fall under other stereotypes like the protective Angel, the hardened soldier. Tf2s characters had more depth and they were INTENDED to be stereotypical
I suppose the difference is that overwatch's design feels like it panders, being kinda shallow in it, while TF2's leaned really far into the stereotypes so far it looped back into being amazing
Even tf2 circumvented a lot of the tropes, such as heavy in the lore being a scholar and soldier and demoman being really good friends
Amazing video as always man, I kinda miss the skull logo but the content is where the meats at and this is some juicy steak fam
i can't lie its like 10 pm rn and i have exams tmr so half this vid went over my head
Interesting points tho i always felt like the idea of omnics were a bit weird
Damn, just watched everything, such an amazing video!
I think the built to serve argument is interesting because just because something was built with the intention to serve doesn't mean that it necessarily MUST serve but yeah making it a 1 to 1 analogy is pretty BAD
you deserve way more subs!
honestly i dont think bob is unhappy or unable to rebel, i think he's just content. he's happy to be here. like yeah, here means hurting people, but I think he's happy, in a way. he follows around ashe and makes her happier and makes her life better and tbh I think, at least from what we've seen of him, he's okay with that
I could be entirely going on a limb here but hey
I founded your channel with this vídeo, tank you for the excellent work 👏. Definitely gonna watch more of your content.
This video is perfect! Thank you for changing the way i see Overwatch lore :D!!
I’m still curious what Null Sector units will they introduce for the story missions.
19:50 "Unfortunately for Tekhartha, the "Alive" in the title did not refer to him" 😭😭😭
There's a notion in hollwood that minority characters won't be marketable so they always make them inhuman in some way(like making them an animal). Its much more noticeable in animated show/movie. Examples:Turning red, Soul, Princess and Frog, that black spy that became a bird and many old disney movies. But I personally think turning red and soul are great films. In a way its a earlier form of representation without the executives axing the character because its a minority.
I feel like any story in which "humans make robots which find sentience" is already bad and philosophically illiterate, because it frames sentience as this clearly delineated thing which you can simply "awaken". I know that within Overwatch's setting, that's how sentience is implied to work, so maybe I should just suspend my disbelief and meet the game halfway, but for some reason, I can't. It always irks me when writers take the incredibly complex issue of even identifying sentience and boil it down to "they're sentient cause you can see them self-reflect and feel emotions and stuff". Or worse yet: "they're sentient cause they have a soul", whatever that means.
For the record, I'm not a solipsist - I don't deny that sentience is a thing or that other people have it. I'm just highlighting that there is literally, by definition, no sufficient empirical evidence which can "prove" that someone is sentient. It's something that will ALWAYS have to be taken on faith, or at most, gambled on in a Pascal's-wager-style risk evaluation. So I feel that the Omnics' assertion that they have developed sentience would always be under attack by sceptics, while Omnic supporters would have to grapple with the question of why they arbitrarily attribute sentience to certain types of robots, but not others.
This is also significant, because if we accept that Omnic A.I. possesses sentience, there is absolutely zero reason why they'd be unable to procreate. It'd be as simple as copying their code to a new body, and there would be absolutely no difference between the supposed sentience of the original and the copy. Claiming otherwise would be like saying that a cloned human isn't sentient because they're "not the original" - and you can only say that if you're making vapid appeals to mysticism and theology ("the clone doesn't have a soul", "it's unnatural", and so on).
Hello fellow Albertan! I’m so glad to have found you! Keep up the great content 😍
From one Albertan to another, I hope you’re surviving this election with your liver intact tonight haha
@@TheViveros I kept hope for as long as I can. I’m devastated 😩
I think I’m gonna try to do a bit of a fundraiser stream to help some of the people who’re gonna be screwed over by this, tbh. It’s rough, I really wish it had gone differently.
@@TheViveros I will be there! And yes, I totally agree with you. It's rough.
10:18 Loving the video so far, but it’s funny how I almost didn’t notice that Sojourn wasn’t mentioned in here… but it sure isn’t difficult. That’s a shame though, and they kind of dropped the ball on her character development :’)
Sojourn wasn’t a founding member, which is why she wasn’t mentioned - her, Tracer, Mercy, etc. joined up at various later points, and I only named the original founding six. She was definitely there pretty early, though, and iirc was the one who helped Liao figure out that Anubis was behind the Crisis.
Ah, I see- thanks for the correction! Your video overall did a fantastic job voicing the problem I’ve personally had with the omnic lore (and roboslaves in general) for a while now, and your summary was well organized to support it. Keep up the good work!
Also: it really is a shame that there isn’t more focus on the spiritual/philosophical implications!
14:13 i didn't see that coming, lmao.
i really forgot bastion had Vietnam ptsd.
i also would like to know how much of overwatch's lore (as scarce as it is) have you consumed (comics, trailers, novels)?
you know, the omnics in overwatch are as much of a lazy writing as the androids in detroit become human. it's not racism if it's not even the same species.
with how much ai has advanced, it would be cool to have fiction writers ask questions like: should what dictates a life, be reevaluated? can non living beings have rights? is ai imitating sentience, or is it actually sentient?
instead we got: don't do the racism guys, it's not cool.
Back in the day I was obsessed with Overwatch, so everything produced up until 2019 I kept up with pretty consistently. I fell off a bit for a while, so I tried to catch back up for this video, but I haven’t fully consumed everything lore-wise (I’ve kept up with the summaries of the material online, just not read the source material of some new stuff). And yeah, there are genuinely just more interesting questions to ask than “What if racism, but with robots?”
wait, volskaya girlie has french tips?? im obsessed 😍
I love the fact you brought up against the storm, most based content creator I swear to god. Put in over a hundred hours so far and I just adore the game, makes me happy knowing other content creators are playing the game
It's a great game! I think I stumbled on it by accident on Twitter at some point and it's easily one of my favourite games I've played in a long time - I don't know how the devs managed to make a roguelike city builder, let alone make it so good, but they deserve way more credit for it for sure.
@@TheViveros What’s even more shocking to me is consistent and constant quality updates. I swear I get bored and check back a week later and there’s a brand new species, or mechanic, or even something as simple as perks. Crazy just how much effort they put into that game
Yeah like if you burn out on it, you can always just put it away for a month or two and by the time you come back it'll have entirely reworked things in a way that makes it engaging again. The rainpunk updates got me hooked back on it for probably a solid month by themselves - the only update I've disliked was when they randomized where the warehouse and fire pit spawned, and that's only because I like having some predictable symmetry in my little villages lol
Great vid, a lot of work put into it.
As a narrative designer I find OW story pretty horrible. Yes, heroes are good (but far from perfect, a lot of them still are just stereotypes. McCassidy is just a cowboy, very little else. etc), narrative design in the way they express their heroes personalities thru animation, voice lines, pre-fight banter is very good. Shorts are good. But the story itself... An AI uprising. Again. A team of clowns in costumes is our last hope - why? And the story itself of the uprising, second uprising, origins, all of that - they are supper muddled. I just watched ur vid and i m already foggy on some details.
And of course the main fuck up - how badly story is presented in the game itself. I played 3,5k hours, i watched the shorts, read SOME comics and yet I hear about Aurora for the first timE NOW. FROM YOU. What the actual fuck? The pivotal point of all that happened - berried fuck knows where.
And the story - actual plot - what happened, what happened after that, where we are now - is SUPER cloudy. And not very interesting tbh.
So yeah, I get a bit heated when smone says OW has good narrative design or - even worse - good story.
Very interesting! Well written, researched, and said, I love how you make your point! I’d like to pick your brain:
Is there any reason to deny the hypothetical notion that the OW writers *weren’t* shooting for a racism analogy, but rather a “racism allusion / reference via a story of prejudice”? It is true that American writers will write based on culture close to home like racism, but the OW writers’ goal was to write a story that substantiated their IP, world, characters, and PvE. The story succeeds in having *allusions* to racism via the conflict, but doesn’t see the need to make it equivalent to real life racism (thereby functioning as a racism analogy and having real commentary on such topics) since the changes needed to do so wouldn’t work for OW’s lore.
Like you said in Part 3, human-omnic relations are not equivalent to real racism since black people and omnics dont have equivalent origins/purposes among other reasons, so it fails as a racism analogy. But who’s to say OW’s goal was a racism analogy, and that writers even *wanted* to make the omnics fit the “black people” bill other than through allusion, instead of (in my opinion) *intending* to tell a more simple story of “humans and robots” without the commitment to tell a deeper commentary on race relations beyond “omnics should be allowed to sit at the table with humans” (OW’s story is one geared more towards action over real social philosophy than writers like us would like, and if OW’s writers wanted to go deeper with story-writing, we would have seen that spiritual angle you mentioned by now haha). If players like us assume OW is intending to write human-omnic relations as an analogy for real-world racism, it misses the mark… but I always saw those relations as intentional allusions and reference towards racism alone, since no evidence suggests OW was intending to go all the way. …which you could see as proof that their analogy is bad but ig my perspective is that an analogy wasn’t their goal.
Again, just a hypothetical! Would love to know what the conversation in that writer’s room was like.
i got a little bit into the video and saw some of the posters about "omnics dont need a seat at the table because they dont eat" and i literally just started thinking 'but... they literally dont? that's not even racism, if anything that's the omnic itself being selfish by uselessly hoarding a seat it doesnt need for the sake of feeling involved'
im glad i wasnt technically wrong, but i still feel dirty admitting i had that thought in the first place, even if this is all about scifi stuff
Hope your Finals go well!
This video made me realize there's so much I don't know about Overwatch lore and I don't know if it was released back when I was obsessed with it or after I stopped caring
It also made me realize Overwatch lore is far sillier than I had realized
Overwatch’s shallow writing literally keeps me up at night sometimes. Without even mentioning the omnics, there are so many characters whose stories and archetypes are not thoroughly explored.
The game praises itself for diversity while relying on very basic surface level stereotypes of characters nationalities. D.Va being heavily infantilised (while technically being in a freaking military) and Kiriko, Hanzo and Genji (the only Japanese characters) all being a part of magical ninja/yakuza clan. It develops such complex and interesting backstories and concepts for its characters just to never explore them.
The most outrageous example for me is widowmaker having one of the most tragic backstories just for her to be used for fan service.
TH-cam decided not to let me post an essay. This is very tragic, because I had a lot to say from multiple relevant perspectives.
Anyway, I'll just keep it at: There is a difference between exploring _themes_ of something and making it a ham-fisted analogy, and Overwatch isn't sure which of those it's trying to do.
I think the reason why only the Omnics (Excluding Sigma but i will talk about him later) have reached the Iris is exactly because their Sentience was manufactured. We dont know exactly why humans are sentient, Aurora probably knew what the fuck they did in that factory that gave her the "I think therefore i am" achievement (How far in the tech tree were they i wonder).
Her knowing how and why she was sentient is probably a big factor on how the hell she reached the iris and was able to spread her sentience in such a small time frame, the awakened Omnics dont know what Aurora did to awaken them beside the consequence being her death, id say they proabably dont know why she was sentient either that secret probably got purged from all records
Sigma interacting with the Iris can be atributed to the fact he probably has a immense understanding of the universe due to the accident with the black hole which lead him being able to Control one of the fundamental forces of the Universe: Gravity, without any technology.
An analogy for it would be that Sigma is like us a 3 dimensional being that lives in the 4th dimension(Space and time) but the black hole accident exposed his mind to "The music of the spheres"(the universe sings to me!) giving him understanding and perspective of the universe that we shouldnt have (in the sense that our minds cant process it, therefore his mind shattered).
Whatever secrets of the universe he saw might as well have been an equivalent of Auroras sacrifice but in a scale so massive that his 'enlinghtenment' straight up just let him manipulate one of the fundamental laws of the universe however he wants through his understanding of reality. With his perspective of the universe interacting with the Iris sounds easy
So thats why Rammatra wanted Anubis destroyed
Yeah, I wish I'd touched on that specifically in the video but couldn't really find the ideal spot to slot it in. I've seen a few people online confused about that interaction (with Pharah, iirc) but it makes perfect sense from Ramattra's perspective - Anubis not only poses a threat to Omnics, but treats them as puppets just like humanity does.
2:31 I'm going to hell, LMAO.
Nah you were 100% correct lmao
I'm not that much in to Overwatch lore, but this reminds a lot like the "new" Deus Ex's bland analogies with augmented humans.
Damn it I need to get up early tomorrow... But I've been waiting for this topic ever since you first announced it
Edit from a fellow uni student: good luck on finals! Don't stress about additional essays too much, your viewers will gladly wait 💪
I've come to believe the whole 'giant war breaks out with robots as an allegory for racism' is starting to become a tired concept.
Just because there isnt a 1:1 analogy to real life racism doesnt mean its inherently bad I feel, it can be its own unique thing with some connections to real life and some unique forms of prejudice. Its a world were geneticly modified gorillas and monk magic exists, it doesnt have to be super realistic to one form of prejudice in real life. Prejudice exists in many forms so its realistic to belive you could have a different form of it towards robots.
Yes, which is why I specifically said that the problem is that the analogy is made to compare it *specifically* to racism. Not all bigotry manifests the same way or comes from the same root causes. I explicitly said that it’s not an issue to tell a story about how Omnics face hate, and that the problem is their analogy to racism. It would be bad if it was an analogy for homophobia, or misogyny, or anything else like that because it fundamentally misrepresents the motivations and impacts of those forms of bigotry.
I disagree with one thing: racism with robots isn't inherently flawed idea. It only gets flawed when you start trying to make allegories to real world.
Create the situation in which racism appears, and look at all the possible merits of where it is coming from.
Racism never appears out of nowhere, it always comes from some kind of fear. Only problem here is that real world american racism comes from the place of irrational fear of the unknown, where overwatch racism comes from the historical place.
It's a difference between "that might be dangerous" and "that IS dangerous, and killed my uncle"
Racism with robots require you to address the potential, real threats and find a work around to them to solve it, not just cultural shift
I really agree with the points you made in the video. I've also always disliked the "interspecies analogy for racism" thing. Especially with robots, because, like you said, it carries the really weird context that robots (the oppressed) literally *were* built for serving humans. The context between interspecies relationships and racism/bigotry is just too different to really work, honestly. If we take a look at, say, zootopia, the herbivore's fear of the carnivores is, to put it bluntly... literally justified. Like, I would feel unease if I had to sit next to a creature that literally has to eat me to survive (not to say that zootopia *needs* to be that deep, but it was the first thing to come into my head). I think you covered what I'm about to say, more or less, but when it comes to interspecies relationships in fiction, there are so many more interesting and more tasteful ways to discuss oppression between those groups. If, in the context of having to coexist with creatures that'll eat you, we take a look at Tokyo Ghoul, for example, I think it posits the more interesting question, "are the ghouls still 'human'?" as opposed to trying to depict the ghouls as a stand-in for racism.