Last Topic: 7:09:48pm, 10/16/2022
Last Post: 5:18:07am, 04/27/2024
Depends on the inspanidual example. Sometimes I get the feeling that writers pick the evil religious organization because that somehow makes it more palatable to audiences when it comes to political themes. They can fall back to discrediting any political position the organization has just by showing that the religion is false, which means they don't have to worry if the story doesn't properly make its case for why a given position is wrong; its source is wrong, ergo, the position can be dismissed out of hand. This can get particularly poorly executed if there are multiple religions in the setting.
That doesn't always happen, though. One of my favorite examples of a religious organization in video games is the Order of Lorelei from Tales of the Abyss. The Order venerates a highly detailed and accurate prophecy, but even within the Order, people have different priorities and interpretations of the prophecy, and what ought to be done in relation to it. Ultimately, the Order as a *cultural entity* is an antagonist, not due to any inherent malice, but rather due to the ultimate nature of the prophecy itself.
Spoilers: The Order teaches that fulfilling the prophecy and its foretold war will lead to unprecedented prosperity, but they are missing pieces of said prophecy. As such, they don't realize that while the prophecy does promise a period of prosperity, it is ultimately a *WARNING.* "Find a way to avert this. I cannot." But the Order of Lorelei has moralized fulfillment of said prophecy, and is therefore working actively against its true purpose. It's an unusual take for a video game in that genre, imo, and it reminds me of when people pick out a sentence or two in a religious text to prove something, only for the broader text to be proven to have the *opposite* message like using Romans 1 to shit on gay people when, if you read on to the very first sentence of Romans 2, the passage is ultimately trying to warn the reader to *not be a hypocrite and condemn and judge others.* Much of the time antagonistic religious institutions end up being (somewhat understandably) comically evil, so TotA was a breath of fresh air to me, and it was nice to see how different NPCs struggled in different ways with their faith.
---
Hi