you know what i’m sick and fucking tired of? detroit become human fans misunderstanding the entire goddamn point. if you play this game and walk away disrespecting minorities and taking it to mean that they should treat artificial intelligence as if it’s alive, i need you to pick up a book and learn critical thinking skills. i’m treating this as a school essay because it just pisses me off so much.
my first point: the game is a metaphor. if you take what you see at face value, you will not get anything out of the meanings within the game. what you witness in the game is a display of real world discrimination- past or present- that real people have faced. they use androids as a vessel for this, because they are not a real group of people.
my second point: the game should compel you to look into real history. it shows interesting lines and paths alluding to things like the underground railroad- which passed through detroit and into canada (i’ll get into people’s glossing over of kara’s story next). not only that, but things like markus being roughed up in the street and androids being segregated from humans everywhere you look.
third: even with all the themes present of real world discrimination, the fandom is insufferable about it. i see less people talking about kara’s storyline with alice and luther than i do of people shipping her with connor. women do not exist for your ships, they are characters like any other. i implore you to explore kara’s life in canada rather than simply ignoring her unless shipping her with either connor (whom she almost never positively interacts with) or luther (more understandable but still not the focus of her storyline). on top of that, the whitewashing of markus is absolutely ridiculous in a game focusing on ideas of segregation and discrimination.
third and a half point: mostly evidence. if you don’t believe me that the game focuses on real world racism and discrimination, i need you to rethink. i’ll start with the standard android uniform. first, the triangle on the front of their chest. a reference to the treatment of those targeted in the holocaust, though in the holocaust the triangles were upside down. next, the android armband. another blatant reference to the holocaust. jewish people were made to wear armbands featuring the star of david to define themselves as different from “general society”. next, the android only areas. it’s very deeply based in the segregation under jim crow laws, which separated white people from “colored” people. androids have to use stairs while humans use escalators. androids have separate spots both to wait for the bus and to ride in the bus, notably at the back where non-white people were made to stand, again under jim crow laws.
BONUS POINT: the treatment of the characters by the fandom is genuinely insane. i’ll break this down into chunks to make it easier to read.
connor: the fandom infantilizes him to no end. he is not a child, and he is not an innocent cinnamon roll. he is an android designed to kill other androids. this brings me to my complaint about nines. as much as we, the fandom love him, he’s done disastrous things for connor. people like to frame it as a strict dichotomy. nines is rude and cold, connor is sweet and warm. this is untrue. connor’s whole story focuses on his own choices between ‘right’ according to cyberlife and right according to general morals. take a moment to remember that just because you like it more doesn’t make the deviant connor route canon. there is no canon route in detroit: become human.
markus: the whitewashing i’ve seen of markus has been insane. i have seen no one look into his story with a critical eye. no discussions of how a revolution leader coming from a more easy upbringing is accurate to reality. he’s either here to be shipped with north or simon, or discarded and glossed over.
kara: she is so completely ignored by everyone that it makes me sick. her story is so interesting and compelling if you bother to think about it. there were major fumbles by the writing team, sure, but her story is a face off against death on their way through the equivalent of the underground railroad for androids. it’s important to pay attention to for reasons besides shipping her with connor- something that annoys me for reasons that should be clear.
hank anderson: i’m talking about him alone because the other precinct members have no canon character to mess up. hank anderson is a man who misses his dead son. he is a suicidal 53 year old cop with a drinking problem. not a ‘daddy’ character to ship with your twinkified version of connor, and not a gay bear. this is why i prefer them as father/son, BUT more than that i prefer them as friends. im not going to get into how fandom hates friends here. i might make a separate rant for that someday. this is an old guy who needs a friend. a man who had a son, and lacks the structure of support needed to recover from the loss.
the jericrew: this is north, josh, and simon. the way they’re treated pisses me off. josh- (notably one of the darkest skinned main characters, if i dare bring that into this) is ignored. the argument could be made that this is because he is not a fandom favorite romantic interest for markus. however, even when i see content where there’s a detail he could fill (like someone trying to liven up jericho) the role is given to north. the mistreatment of women by both fandom and even media is appalling. i see no north content besides her ship with markus, which was rushed and incomplete even in game. however, in the fandom, north is then overshadowed by simon. simon is the fanon favorite gay love interest for markus. this is somewhat because he was a scrapped canon love path for him, and he is the party of jericho who is just anti-murder. whatever path you take, he just wants people to survive. this makes him easy to befriend unless you’re choosing a violent route, where you’ll only end up close with north.
luther, alice, and rose: completely neglected by the entire fandom. if kara is mentioned, chances are luther would only be mentioned as a love interest, and alice only as both of their child. i’ve only seen rose MENTIONED by a few people. she’s integral to their android-railroad (if i dare give it a nickname). a good route in kara’s storyline involves her help. i love her as a character and it makes me sad she isn’t talked about more.
some things i have said bring me to a pattern i have noticed in the game itself tracking to the fandom. the main three of both the main characters and jericrew. a white woman, a white man, an a non-white man. a woman who is overshadowed outside of ships, a generally overshadowed man, and a fan favorite white man.
i’ve gone on long enough. if you read all of this rant, thank you for your time. i hope this has made some people think more critically about this game, which i consider myself quite passionate about.
