I still need to get back into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 but if anything’s gonna do it, tell them i died’s essay will. In it, he discussed the game as an example of ‘passive violence’:
it wasn’t until maelle accompanied expedition 33 to the uncharted lands surrounding the paintress‘ domain and saw the majority of her fellow explorers cut down by an unknown enemy that she remembered the true horrors of death. the gommage‘s serene flower petals were replaced by gallons of blood and piles of lifeless bodies left in the massacre’s wake. passive violence may fade into the background with time, but active violence is in your face. it lingers. it shakes you from reverie and back into the real world. it haunts your sleep with nightmares and turns every waking moment into a fight against spiraling trauma. it demands your attention. and that can be terrifying when you’ve become complacent, especially outside the confines of a mere video game.
And then relating it to alleged murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO:
“i do apologize for any strife of [sic] traumas but it had to be done,” mangione allegedly explained in a written statement found among his belongings. “frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. a reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. united is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only apple, google, walmart. it has grown and grown, but as [sic] our life expectancy? no the reality is these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the american public has allwed [sic] them to get away with it.”
I never would have paired the two in this kind of context but it works. Perhaps there’s an element of “poetic justice” in both cases but from difference sides of the page. The question remains: is there true justice in the end for either offender (alleged or otherwise)? You can maybe find out one of them if you play the game.