Screenshot from City of Heroes, starring my character In Hoc Signo Vince (a modern paladin type with a Roman-inspired helm and Valkyrie cape), leader of the supergroup Masshiro (“Pure white” in English) on the main European server. In the background two other supergroup members. Evidence to use against me if someone here in Mandal blows up something.
According to an article in Norwegian news site DN.no, the star profiler of criminals, Pat Brown, has found a connection between Norwegian terrorist Breivik and computer games. (Breivik famously mentions playing computer games in his 1500 page book. Of course, I mention playing computer games over and over in my far larger autobiography right here in front of you, and I have yet to kill any socialists in real life. So I think that may not be the crucial point.)
“Violent psychopaths often have a superhero complex” the expert is quoted as saying. (Well, it is translated into Norwegian, so some nuances may be lost.) “They are obsessed by the thought of playing the role as Superman, Spiderman or ninja and fight in a superhero way.”
Evidently it must be divine intervention that I have not already murdered several times over as many people as Mr Breivik. Well, I won’t deny that. Divine intervention is a good thing. (Somewhat depending on the deity, says a voice in my head.) But if so, I think we should not rule out demonic intervention in his case. Or “mind parasites” as we say in the Transdimensional Church of the Cosmic Raccoon.
Evidently computers must be a lot more widespread in Afghanistan than their $1 a day average income made me believe. Also, those games must be older than I thought to have influenced not only Hitler but also Genghis Khan (probably Civilization II in the case of Genghis, the Mongol Horde strategy was a pretty sure winner back then). Not to mention the Vandals, the Aztecs, and the Assyrians with their habit of stacking up skulls. Incredible how the amount of computer games has dropped over the last few decades to give us the fairly peaceful and harmonic world we have today, compared with every single age of recorded history (and the bone record of prehistory, implying that something like a quarter of the stone age dead were killed in some way).
Oh well. I should probably go set some pixel people on (spiritual) fire again. After all, I am not like you ordinary people who don’t do such dubious things as playing games!
Incidentally, the word “masshiro” is Japanese, as is the costume of one of the girls. It refers to all of us using light-based powers, as a symbol of spiritual purity, and has nothing to do with race. Â Yeah, right, tell that to the judge!