Bloggers wanted: Taking out the trash

Bring ’em on!

July is a month associated with patriotism, humidity and fireworks in some parts of the world but when it comes to video games, we all have a shared, special heritage — a birthright, if you will — and we can trace it all the way back to old tabletop games. Back in those days, kids would gather around maps and pewter figurines and imagine all sorts of amazing ways to shoot, blow up and incinerate Nazis.

Nazis are among gaming’s most popular cannon-fodder and I think that’s for good reason. You can pity zombies and potentially sympathize and seek diplomacy with a dragon, but Nazis and despotic, genocidal fascists have been a very real thing at points in our history and when assholes start fencing groups of people in and committing genocide, sympathy tends to go right out the window for said assholes. It’s probably the reason we have so many fantasy or science-fiction versions of fascists as well, whether that’s the latest set of imperials in a Final Fantasy game or stormtroopers in Star Wars.

And since those tabletop days and all the video game genres that have emerged since, we’ve dug deep into history as well as all the “what if” scenarios surrounding World War II. There were weapons and vehicles on the books from that period that never made it into production, but in theory they could have changed the course of battles and this as been the subject of many strategy games, flight simulators and more. There has been research about Nazis and their interest in the occult which as led to all sorts of movies and games exploring the possibilities. B.J. Blazkowicz wouldn’t have much to do in Wolfenstein were this not the case.

But in the end it all results in Nazis being melted, vaporized, impaled, cursed, zombified, loopzooked, riddled with holes and so much more. That’s always fun and cathartic. Violent, yes, but they’re Nazis and Nazis ain’t got no humanity. I’ve never really had fun reading about or watching what Nazis did, but I have always had fun obliterating genocidal maniacs or even just seeing them get punched.

So this month’s Blogger’s Wanted prompt is called “Taking out the trash.” We’re going to be discussing destroying Nazis or various other fantasy or space fascists in all the amazing ways we can in any genre or series in which they might lurk, regardless of whether it is historically accurate or not. Tell us your tales of glory of toppling such evil empires and regimes, be it by cyborg arm, sniper rifle or magic spell. Just head over to the community blogs, get a blog started use the prompt’s title “Taking out the trash: [your title here]” and go to town!

Also, fuck Nazis.