About Political Correctness

[welcome to the jungle]

One day, months ago, I noticed the Axis Commander from the Heart of Darkness quest being in Book of Souls.
Well, actually that is wrong.
Like his identical twin the character you get from Book of Souls looks like the Axis Commander, wears an Axis uniform and has the same attacks. He even is possessed by the same dark powers.
Just that he's not called Axis Commander.
He is called Corrupt General .
And I wondered.
I wondered why I can get Axis troops, like the Bomber Boys, like Gunners and Soldiers, an Alliance General, Allied troops, Dogs and Rifles from both sides from WWII.
Yet no Axis Commander.

So I messaged their Facebook team.

At first they kept ignoring the question, but a lot of time passed and I am a patient person when it's about something like this, and they actually told me what they think happened.


The name was changed since some concerns were brought up regarding the potential sensitivity from mass audiences, and it ultimately seemed to be a Roadhouse decision.

Now, I am asking myself why something that is part of world history and that we educate our children about in schools to not let it happen again - talking about WWII and especially the Axis powers here - is considered politically incorrect in the context of a Battlefield cosmos in a game based on the songs of Iron Maiden
I personally think that not changing the name, but much rather changing it is not appropriate.

To other players: How do you feel about that? What are your thoughts on this?
To the Officials: Any chance you could change it back to Axis Commander and if not, then what exactly is the problem there? Where do you draw that line?

[slauki]

really like the idea of the thread, although there are more important issues atm :-)

since the axis commander was one of the main characters who also appears on the loading screen the guys were probably a little overprotective. maybe they though that one of the most desired characters in the game should'n be associated with the nazis. but it's only a thesis.
but why do we have a hellhound then? that could hurt the feelings of some religious persons too ;-)

it's a game in a specific universe and most of us know that this is only a form of art and entertainment. iron maiden is a worldwide popular brand so people all over the world are united through their music. that's why i cannot see a reason to be overprotective, since the band is the best example for a worldwide community without inherent natiaonalistic tendencies.

that's why i would also love to rename CG to axis commander again, since that was a real cool name, the corrupt general is somewhat lame imo.

OTAH someone pointed out long ago that the prefix corrupt fits better to the story line, since there are many corrupted characters. their soul
was corrupted by the evil beast, that's why they behave the way they do.

maybe it's a combination of both factors, but who knows :-)

anyway: MAKE THE AXIS COMMANDER GREAT AGAIN :)

[Kardas]

It's a difficult thing IMO.

Looking at it from a linguistics perspective, 'Axis Commander' sounds incredibly menacing, which is great for a boss character of that magnitude (see also: why the Command & Conquer series call the player character 'Commander' all the time). Like, 'General' and 'Marshal' are generally higher ranks in a military, but 'Commander' just rolls off the tongue in a great way.

On the other hand, it's a liiiiitle awkward when you start up the game and one of the most heavily advertised (and popular) characters is a Nazi. I'm sure no one would bat an eye if it were the Allied General that had the cool loading screen art.

I do agree the change makes sense from a storyline perspective though. All Axis goons in the game (both Soldiers, Undead Soldiers, and Bomber Boys) use their weapons to attack people, and their Power moves can be mostly explained as simple Talisman augments. Similarly, the Allied General's Grand Strategy power move is already very in character for him even if there were no such thing as Talismans. I think the Talismans can also easily explain the Fury & Power steal from his normal move. Only thing it can't explain IMO is why he floats from stage to stage.

On the other hand, the Corrupt General is truly changed by his corruption, just like the Corrupt Owl and Ox Cultists. His eyes glow supernaturally, chest has gone all cosmic, and the magical powers he explicitly wields do not fit the character if he were not corrupted. Similarly, he floats from stage to stage. Magical powers at work again.

My preferred solution would be a compromise: "Corrupt Commander". Gets the awesomeness of the word Commander back, and the Corrupt part gives it a wicked alliteration. Maybe also call the Allied General Allied Commander while we're at it?

[Lord Schmeb]

^^^. Pretty much everything he said. X2.

[welcome to the jungle]

I think that especially not changing the uniform at all makes pretty obvious to new players too that they just changed the name. As someone who's new to the game I basically get to know the Corrupt General from the loading screen and then I meet the Axis Commander as boss in the Battlefield map.

I personally am studying History and (maybe for that reason) its kinda obvious to me that he is wearing an Axis uniform with a Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.
A picture of that can be found on Wikipedia (and yes, I know, its not a reliable source, but its just about the picture and at least that is correct)
I will give links of all pictures because I didnt figure out how to post pics yet; the forum says I have to log in again and somehow it never works.

You can even guess the real Axis General that character was modeled after; from the facial features I'd say its either General Jürgen von Armin without the beard or maybe even General Erwin Rommel.


The point with the loading screens here is, that there still is a loading screen of the Axis Bomber Boy that is promoting a high value Axis character just like the Axis Commander loading screen would.
I have not heard of any complaints about that yet, maybe there is something about it here on the Forum but considering that he still exists with that name it can't be offending too many people.

I think that the point here is not how the name sounds like, which dark powers possess the character (they also do that in the level and that does not change his name there) or that we have more important stuff to care about.
I think the point is that it is not offensive to have an Axis Commander if you have other Axis and Allied characters and an Underworld map with a Beast to fight too and use it in this context, and that it's going a little too far to censor everything, and that it is ridiculous to make political correctness changes that are this obvious and in the end useless. What I mean is that I still fight with a guy in an Axis uniform that I met ingame as commander of the Axis forces - if somebody really cared, he'd still be offended by it.

For those reasons I'd like him changed back again.


Links to the pictures I mentioned:
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross
(Since it's just about the pic and not about further information Wikipedia is okay to use as a source here, since the pic is correct)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight's_Cross_of_the_Iron_Cross

Axis Commander from Promotion material
From LOTB in the Google Play Store:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/eRfldK7XeerRpbC5uhNFJz_HZHzlS7esSjp3gXobFx_uX4cz51 n6FROzkUYa8OCiHQ=h900

General Jürgen von Armin
(from gettyimages)
http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/16th-may-1948-general-jurgen-von-armin-the-nazi-general-and-commander-picture-id3252371

General Erwin Rommel
(also from gettyimages)
http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/general-erwin-rommel-is-inspecting-the-coastal-defense-system-with-a-picture-id461731465?s=594x594

[slauki]

check out this thread:

http://forum.ironmaidenlegacy.com/showthread.php?4665-Here-is-the-quot-real-quot-Axis-Commander-(aka-Corrupt-General)&highlight=osiris

[welcome to the jungle]

thank you slauki!
The author of that thread also believes it's clean shaven Jürgen von Armin... Guess we found our Axis Commander then.

[slauki]

in case you are interested in the alliance general discussions too :-) :

http://forum.ironmaidenlegacy.com/showthread.php?4669-Here-is-the-quot-real-quot-Alliance-General-Just-a-guess&highlight=alliance+general

[welcome to the jungle]

Thanks, slauki.
Actually I'd be more interested in some official's point of view on this issue.
Since I am new to the forum, do you know if its possible to tag them or something like that?
That'd be great!

[slauki]

Thanks, slauki.
Actually I'd be more interested in some official's point of view on this issue.
Since I am new to the forum, do you know if its possible to tag them or something like that?
That'd be great!

i doubt that you will get answers on this issue, since it would ruin the mystery ;)

tagging persons is not possible as far as i know...

[welcome to the jungle]

Well, it's not really a mystery. I already have the explanation why they renamed the character from their Facebook team, I'd just like to know if there's a chance they'll change it back

[Fudjo]

Doubtful they'll change it again. We can argue all we want about whether it was necessary to change it in the first place, but it seems even less necessary to change it back.

[welcome to the jungle]

I disagree. Changing it for the reason they gave was a mistake imo, and I would like them to fix that
If they care that much about political correctness, then I'd at least like to know why we still call historical events too politically incorrect to use them in this context.
I think its just obvious that they changed it even to new players and it does raise some questions