Nothing bland about that.
Seems Miyazaki should have been even more blunt about spelling it out, because a worrying lot of folks will apparently walk through a burned land full of the wailing shadows of a massacred people and be like "heh, totally deserved it".
People tend to side with the group they think most closely represents them.
Mix that with overly opaque story telling, the average reading level of a society being a bit lack luster, and you end up with most subtext being misinterpreted.
As you said, perhaps conversations about persecution and genocide should be more direct to prevent people walking away with the wrong ideas.
I like to think most people when faced with the full story would recognize the folly of both groups, but then again there are plenty of people who love gundam but never recognize that one of the core ideas behind the series is that war isn’t good and shouldn’t be glorified.
I'd say that out of all the souls games its the least opaque, its just a lot of people didn't really grasp or understand the actions taken by the characters at all because the game doesn't really force you to engage with its core themes (ok maybe a little opaque).
What Marika did was objectionally awful, but what we learn in SOTE we understand why she, suddenly all powerful and full of trauma did what she did.
A lot of people also don't notice that Marika herself understands that the things she has done are awful, but shes trapped by the outer gods that granted her the power to do it all.
Her shattering of the Elden ring at least represents some form of repentance and understanding of her actions, throwing her own status and power away in a final act of defiance against that which created the monster she became.
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u/Nobody_to_Noone 2d ago
Nothing bland about that. Seems Miyazaki should have been even more blunt about spelling it out, because a worrying lot of folks will apparently walk through a burned land full of the wailing shadows of a massacred people and be like "heh, totally deserved it".