Far Cry 5: Bad messaging if Seed lives in FC:ND
Joseph Seed in FC5 was a terrible dude who really should have come to a messy, grisly end. So it was (at least to me) really dissatisfying that the Deputiy was turned into Seed's very special pet at the end. For those of us who actually studied the threat of nuclear holocaust, the policies of mutually assured destruction and the tension of the cold war, a global nuclear exchange was really improbable then and is even less likely now.
Yes, I wrote a blog piece about it. My own hypothesis for the ending of FC5 was to suggest the US attacked North Korea by conventional means, and Kim Jong-un launched his handful of nuclear-tipped Taepodong-3 ICBMs at North America in a desperation retaliation, and by a miracle of probability they all dropped on Hope County, Montana. It's a very localized apocalypse.
Far Cry: New Dawn put an end to all that. And now it's been revealed that Joseph Seed is an ally in New Dawn, and the Deputy Sheriff that was last known to be Seed's play toy has come to a very sad, pathetic end. Because, I think, the devs wanted the story of FC5 to be one giant Jack Chick tract. No matter how evil your religious institution is, stay loyal or face Hellfire. I've since hypothesized this is a tale as told from a drunken preacher in a Hope County watering hole.
I haven't played FC:ND and wonder if Seed lives. Ubisoft went through great lengths to avoid saying anything about extremist cults in the United States (which has a rich history of new religious movements, both benign and dangerous) or, for that matter, Montana's salty history of racism and provincialism. I would have rather seen a more authentic American doomsday cult story, myself, but I also get that the ESRB doesn't like games that make end users think to hard about controversial issues.
But if seed, the brutal, cruel Christian white man lives at the end of FC:ND and Mickey and Lou, the brutal, cruel black women die at the end of FC:ND then that will definitely be read as Ubisoft saying something and taking a side it probably did not intend.
Maybe the folks at Ubi thought this through. But given the ending of FC5 it feels like maybe they generally don't.
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