When Rockstar Games tease their latest Grand Theft Auto title, you know a debate is just around the corner. With a new trailer viewed, as I write, over million times on YouTube, hype has begun to grow for the release of GTA 6. So, kind reader, if none of this has disqualified me from the conversation at hand, then allow me to proceedβ¦.
Beforehand, I had been oblivious to GTA 6. Rather, Alex posits that people form judgements on the games based on their emotional response to screen-based violence. Back when I was in high school, for example, I remember an occasion when my Religious Education teacher lambasted the games for their explicit inclusion of prostitution.
Is there a place for violence of any kind in entertainment? Destructive forces can serve a narrative purpose, for one thing, as opposed to pure gratuity. Protagonists in great stories often face terrible infringements of their person β as, of course, did our Lord.
One fictional character who springs to mind is Theon Greyjoy from Game of Thrones. Theon is a good example because his torture and eventual castration is part of a redemption arc, which arguably saves him from an even deadlier path. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, a favourite game of mine, contains violence which is frequently hilarious.
Another factor is the genre. Skyrim is a fantasy game, whose universe differs greatly from our own. By contrast, GTA presents realistic urban settings, where the weapons are true to life.
