EXCLUSIVE:Vladimir Putin debuts as villain in DIVINITY II

[agent_graves]

http://m.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ ... -1.2586477" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[nycjadie]

Spoiler in title - can we edit that?

[agent_graves]

But, once you follow the link, it's in the article as well. It's no getting around, said villains, identity.

[dornwolf]

In no way am I shocked by this. If Putins done anything he's helped revive the Russians as villains in fiction once more.

[Elveen]

In no way am I shocked by this. If Putins done anything he's helped revive the Russians as villains in fiction once more.

I love Russian villains.

Drago, Red Dawn Soviets, Boris and Natasha from Bullwinkle, Klebb, Gary Oldman from Air Force One, The dude that burnt his hand with the medallion from Indiana Jones, the soviet hockey team from Miracle.

the more Russian bad guys the better.

[Sven the Returned]

In no way am I shocked by this. If Putins done anything he's helped revive the Russians as villains in fiction once more.

It's mostly just because of the way he looks. He is no angel but he is no devil either.

[Blood of Heroes]

The dude that burnt his hand with the medallion from Indiana Jones

Pretty sure that guy was a German.

[Blood of Heroes]

It's mostly just because of the way he looks. He is no angel but he is no devil either.

Seriously?

Alexander Litvinenko might disagree with you.

[dornwolf]

It's mostly just because of the way he looks. He is no angel but he is no devil either.

Seriously?

Alexander Litvinenko might disagree with you.

To be fair...so would Ukraine.

[Elveen]

The dude that burnt his hand with the medallion from Indiana Jones

Pretty sure that guy was a German.

Oops.

[jmatt]

Spoiler in title - can we edit that?

Yeah. Please.

[Sven the Returned]

It's mostly just because of the way he looks. He is no angel but he is no devil either.

Seriously?

Alexander Litvinenko might disagree with you.

To be fair...so would Ukraine.

Honestly don't remweber the Litvinenko case it was so long ago. I don't see why Ukraine could not wait untill the next election if they were upset about the economic ties with Russia strenghtening. Also Putin only wants his naval base there opposed to the US who murdsers civilians with drones because they are scared of a bunch of terrorists. Also which counbtry destabilised more places in the last 15 years?

[Watchtower]

I mean, I can't say I'm surprised by this. Dude's a recognized Memetic Badass. It was gonna be either Putin or some kind of robo-Stalin.

[Blood of Heroes]

It's mostly just because of the way he looks. He is no angel but he is no devil either.

Seriously?

Alexander Litvinenko might disagree with you.

To be fair...so would Ukraine.

Honestly don't remweber the Litvinenko case it was so long ago.

It was that one time Putin murdered a guy by having him poisoned with Polonium 210.
No big deal tho

[Chiclo]

It's mostly just because of the way he looks. He is no angel but he is no devil either.

Seriously?

Alexander Litvinenko might disagree with you.

To be fair...so would Ukraine.

Honestly don't remweber the Litvinenko case it was so long ago.

It was that one time Putin murdered a guy by having him poisoned with Polonium 210.
No big deal tho

Tried to murder a man in another sovereign country. For the time being, it is a separate and independent country, anways. The name of which in Russian translates as "Little Russia". Except for the southern half of that country. They call that "New Russia".

[DirtbagSailor]

I do have to ask though.

When political leaders order spys kill spys, when did we start calling that murder? It's pretty much how things sort of operate internationally (many countries conduct similar operations), always have, and (likely) always will.

It's the plot for most 007 films.

I'm just not used to it being called "murder" (though any killing certainly can be justified as such). Seems like a LOT of killing in this world can fall into the "murder" category if this is the case.
Not looking for a fight, just wondering when the world point of view shifted?

[iggy101us]

Is Putin available for CGC SS opportunity?

[Blood of Heroes]

I do have to ask though.

When political leaders order spys kill spys, when did we start calling that murder? It's pretty much how things sort of operate internationally (many countries conduct similar operations), always have, and (likely) always will.

It's the plot for most 007 films.

I'm just not used to it being called "murder" (though any killing certainly can be justified as such). Seems like a LOT of killing in this world can fall into the "murder" category if this is the case.
Not looking for a fight, just wondering when the world point of view shifted?

You have a point. But the discussion seemed to be "is Putin a monster?" To me, a gunshot to the back of the head seems more civilized. Radiation poisoning is less every day villainy and more cartoonish supervilliany.

[Blood of Heroes]

Is Putin available for CGC SS opportunity?

LOeffingL

[grendeljd]

Is Putin available for CGC SS opportunity?

LOeffingL

Who's gonna get that First Signed copy??

[depluto]

I do have to ask though.

When political leaders order spys kill spys, when did we start calling that murder? It's pretty much how things sort of operate internationally (many countries conduct similar operations), always have, and (likely) always will.

It's the plot for most 007 films.

I'm just not used to it being called "murder" (though any killing certainly can be justified as such). Seems like a LOT of killing in this world can fall into the "murder" category if this is the case.
Not looking for a fight, just wondering when the world point of view shifted?

You have a point. But the discussion seemed to be "is Putin a monster?" To me, a gunshot to the back of the head seems more civilized. Radiation poisoning is less every day villainy and more cartoonish supervilliany.

Also, Putin stole Robert Kraft's Super Bowl ring. No *SQUEE*.

[Blood of Heroes]

Is Putin available for CGC SS opportunity?

LOeffingL

Who's gonna get that First Signed copy??

Maybe Dinesh can work something out with the Chinese investors to hook that up.

[Sven the Returned]

It's mostly just because of the way he looks. He is no angel but he is no devil either.

Seriously?

Alexander Litvinenko might disagree with you.

To be fair...so would Ukraine.

Honestly don't remweber the Litvinenko case it was so long ago.

It was that one time Putin murdered a guy by having him poisoned with Polonium 210.
No big deal tho

If you are running to be the Devil, it's really not. How many kids dies in drone strikes and that's just the West? The Congo is really ahead of everyone with Devil candidates.

[Blood of Heroes]

If you are running to be the Devil, it's really not. How many kids dies in drone strikes and that's just the West? The Congo is really ahead of everyone with Devil candidates.

I'm not sure why you keep bringing the West into this. No one is arguing that America hasn't done/isn't doing morally questionable things at home and abroad. If you want the League of Super Villains to include George W., Obama, Trump, and Hillary be my guest. Your original position was that Putin was selected to be a comic book villain "mostly just because of the way he looks" and that is just absurd.

[DirtbagSailor]

Humanity is really horrible; people always seem ready to wave their fingers at any nation that does the sort of stuff that nations do.

Khmer Rouge Regime:

• The Khmer Rouge were members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, and during their 4-year reign of terror, from 1975 to 1979, they completely destroyed Cambodia, economically, politically, and demographically.
  
  The Communist Khmer Rogue party took control of Cambodia in 1975 following the Cambodian Civil War. The super paranoid, super totalitarian regime run by sociopaths like Pol Pot immediately began arresting, torturing and executing anyone they deemed to be their enemy, which included professionals, intellectuals, artists, musicians, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese, ethnic Thai and other minorities, as well as anyone with ties to the former government. Thats a lot of people. Many passed through the horrifying Tuol Sleng Centre where they were interrogated, tortured and forced to give up the names of friends and family before being marched to the infamous Killing Fields to be executed via pick axe (Pol Pot was a thrifty psycho who wanted to save bullets) and buried in mass graves. In the end, some two million people died from executions, disease, starvation and forced labor.
  
  The death toll of this regime cannot be accurately calculated, because records were rarely kept well. The most reliable estimate is 2.5 to 3 million murdered. That was 21% of Cambodia’s population.

The Holodomor:

• Holodomor is the Ukrainian word for “killing by hunger.” It is now the proper term for Josef Stalin’s forced starvation genocide against the Ukraine from 1932 to 1933. The manner by which Stalin forced it on the Ukrainian people is open for discussion, but most historians agree that he knew what was happening in the Ukraine and refused to provide relief of any kind, even ordering food shipments diverted from the Ukraine and what food its population had confiscated, violently whenever necessary. He imposed this particularly cruel death sentence on so many solely out of retaliation for the Ukraine striving for national recognition and independence.
  
  The numbers are the saddest testimony overall in every one of these entries. Records were not well kept during the famine, so the death toll ranges from 1.8 to 12 million. Some scholars have narrowed this down to about 4 to 5 million. The borders were closed by the NKVD, the precursor to the KGB, and anyone attempting to flee to other countries or Russian states was either shot or captured and brought back to starve. 190,000 tried to escape the Ukraine after the first year. Starvation may be the most awful cause of death.

The Bangladesh Liberation War:

• Pakistan held general elections for the first time in 1970. The Awami League, which represented Bengalis living in Eastern Pakistan, won a majority of the seats. But the thing is, Pakistan’s president never gave the Awami League any real power, triggering a mass uprising in Eastern Pakistan. The military responded with Operation Searchlight, a purging of Bengalis, including massacres, killings, rape, arson and the systematic elimination of religious minorities. Eastern Pakistan eventually won the war, defeating Western Pakistan when India intervened, leading to the establishment of Bangladesh as a sovereign nation — but not before nearly 300,00 civilians were killed.

The Darfur Genocide:

• After two Darfur rebel movements launched attacks against the Sudanese government in 2003, Sudan responded with with brutal raids, targeting ethnic groups that supported the rebels. Villages were destroyed, millions displaced (resulting in a humanitarian crisis) and up to 300,000 killed in violence that continues to this day. President Bush called the atrocities “genocide,” but failed to stop them. Sudan’s president at the time, Omar al-Bashir, was indicted at the International Criminal Court on three counts of genocide and five of crimes against humanity.

Uganda Under Idi Amin:

• As commander of the armed forces, Idi Amin ousted Ugandan leader Milton Obote and seized power in a military coup in 1971. He soon began his reign of terror, using death squads to carry out widespread torture, killings and ethnic cleansing. He developed a fearsome reputation as a cannibal, and became known as the “Butcher of Uganda.” All told, up to 500,000 people were killed for ethnic, political and financial reasons during Amin’s eight-year rule.
  
  One story states that Idi Amin once tied up 500 men, lined them up along a road, and smashed their skulls one-by-one with a sledgehammer to make a fearful point to his people.

Ethiopia’s Red Terror:

• Like Burundi, this was another instance of ethnic violence between Tutsis and Hutus. Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira (both Hutus) were assassinated when their plane was shot down while landing in Rwanda, leading to a swift, precise, organized genocide against the Tutsi minority and moderate Hutus that claimed up to one million lives in just 100 days. Women were raped. Parents were hacked to death with machetes in front of their children. Millions more were displaced as refugees. Tensions had been building for a long time, with the Tutsi minority controlling power for centuries, until the Hutus took over after the rebellion of 1959-1962.

Rwanda Genocide:

• After gaining control of Ethiopia’s Communist military junta — called the Derg — following a bloody shootout in 1977, dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam oversaw the Red Terror, a violent campaign of repression targeted at a number of anti-Derg groups. Hundred of thousands of men and women (who were also subjected to rape) were executed, including some who were herded into churches and burned. Derg soldiers often refused to release bodies for burial until family members had reimbursed them for the cost of the bullet used in the killing. Mengistu was found guilty of genocide in absentia in 2007, and eventually sentenced to death in 2008. He remains exiled in Zimbabwe, where he fled in 1991, following the conclusion of the Ethiopian Civil War.

The Armenian Genocide:

• The crumbling Ottoman Empire (Muslims) systematically rounded up and killed up to 1.5 million Armenians (Christians, Jews) in a desperate attempt to preserve and purify their eroding state. Men were executed on the spot or forced into labor camps before being killed. Women, children and the elderly were marched into the Syrian desert to die. Rape and sexual abuse were abundant. When all was said done, there were fewer than 400,000 Armenians remaining in the Ottoman Empire. Before the killings, there were two million. To this day, the Turkish government denies that this was a genocide — but they’re wrong. Systematic violence against an ethnic group? Check. Rape on a widespread scale? Check. Brutal murders and death marches? Check. Sure sounds like genocide to us.

The Armenian Genocide:

• The crumbling Ottoman Empire (Muslims) systematically rounded up and killed up to 1.5 million Armenians (Christians, Jews) in a desperate attempt to preserve and purify their eroding state. Men were executed on the spot or forced into labor camps before being killed. Women, children and the elderly were marched into the Syrian desert to die. Rape and sexual abuse were abundant. When all was said done, there were fewer than 400,000 Armenians remaining in the Ottoman Empire. Before the killings, there were two million. To this day, the Turkish government denies that this was a genocide — but they’re wrong. Systematic violence against an ethnic group? Check. Rape on a widespread scale? Check. Brutal murders and death marches? Check. Sure sounds like genocide to us.

Stalin’s Collectivization, Purges:

• Stalin had no trouble finding ways to kill people. It all started with collectivization, which was the state’s seizure of land from farmers, who Stalin then sent to work in camps and factories in an effort to transform the Soviet Union from an agricultural power to and industrial one. Farmers in the Ukraine started to get *SQUEE*. Stalin responded by cutting off their food supply and starving them, taking special aim at a group of affluent farmers known as kulaks. Then there was a little something called The Great Purge. Essentially, Stalin killed or sent to the gulags (to die) every person he deemed an enemy of the state. This included government officials, military leadership, intellectuals, peasants and farmers.

The Holocaust:

• We all know this story. Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, sought to exterminate every single Jew in Europe, and almost succeeded, killing nearly two-thirds of them. Jews were herded into ghettos, packed onto trains, then shipped off to concentration camps, where they were gassed en masse. The Holocaust is chilling not only because of its efficiency, but also because of the intricate roll played by various German institutions. That's why some scholars now refer to the Third Reich as “the genocidal state” — the whole country was in on it. Estimates of the number killed vary widely, but it’s safe to say AT LEAST six million Jews were killed, including one million Jewish children.

Mao’s Great Leap Forward:

• Much like Stalin sought to industrialize the Soviet Union with the Five Year Plan, Mao Zedong hoped to transform the agrarian economy of China into a more advanced communist society with a plan of his own: The Great Leap Forward. And just like Stalin, Mao used fear, coercion and systematic violence to enforce collectivization. People were set on fire, buried alive, doused in excrement or forced to work naked in the winter. But unlike Stalin’s Five Year Plans, which more or less worked, The Great Leap Forward was an economic disaster, not to mention the fact that 45 million people died from starvation, execution, forced labor and suicide, among other causes.

I suppose America's drone strikes and Putin's murder fit in there somewhere, but basically the bottom line is that — at least historically — the U.S. only intervenes when there is something in it for them. Then again, whether the reasons are (publicly) understood or not, this is sort of true for any nation.