Backstory – Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a new video game from developer/publisher Ubisoft. Wildlands is a tactical cooperative shooter for up to 4 people. In the Wildlands story, a drug cartel named Santa Blanca has risen to power in Bolivia. They have kidnapped a DEA agent who was a mole inside the cartel, and it’s time for the United States to send in the armed group that “doesn’t exist” known as “The Ghosts”.
To promote this upcoming game, Ubisoft has released a short film called Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands: War Within The Cartel. (And the award for longest movie title of the year goes to…) The movie is released under the production label Ubisoft Entertainment Legion of Creatives.
As a Christian and an aficionado of video games, I have seen plenty of “sacrilegious” uses of God and the Bible. It’s unfortunate, but it’s considered “edgy” to rebel against something sacred, and some developers create games that stand against the common conceptions of God and the Bible. Bayonetta did this with it’s perverted take on The Creator. Usually, these twisted tales are fairly generic, targeting “God” or “people of faith”. But this latest attack seems to be more specific and includes a dark perversion of a beautiful passage from the book of Revelation.
El Cardenal
Wildlands: War Within The Cartel features some truly heartless bad guys. In storytelling, I love the villain to be detestable. You know, in that whole melodramatic way where you just want to openly boo them in the theater. All of the villains in the film Wildlands: War Within The Cartel are detestable, but one baddie in particular strikes a nerve with me. He is known as El Cardenal, the “spiritual advisor”.
El Cardenal is clearly supposed to be a bad guy. War Within the Cartel lets the viewer know that he was excommunicated, so it’s likely that he was a Catholic, and possibly a cardinal. Featuring an evil “holy man” is nothing new. It’s not uncommon for writers to use a wicked priest as an ironic twist. This doesn’t specifically bother me, it’s a valid story vehicle. And there has been enough evil from within the Catholic Church that seeing it portrayed in movies reminds me to personally be diligent and accountable.
In War Within the Cartel, our introduction to El Cardenal seems innocent enough, to a non-Christian anyway. We see him, seemingly near the end of a sermon. He quotes a bible verse for the congregation (emphasis mine).
“Revelations 19:11, And there before me was a white horse whose rider was called faithful and true. And he is dressed in a robe dipped in the blood of his vanquished enemies, over whom he always prevails. And his name is the word of God.”
He then goes on to speak briefly about the Santa Blanca cartel and their “community” and closes the sermon with:
“Let us pray.”
First of all, the verse in the Wildlands movie is actually a combination of verses in Revelation 19, including the passage from verses 11 through 13. Here is the complete passage from the NIV:
11I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. 12 His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. 13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.
In this passage, Jesus is the rider. And blood is a very important symbol throughout the Bible. After all, Jesus’ blood is what cleanses his people of their sin. This passage, though having some war-like language, never states that Jesus’s robe is dipped in “the blood of his vanquished enemies”. The Bible is clear in Ephesians 6:2:
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Why then would this passage in Revelation be about dragging Jesus’ robe through his enemies blood? Jesus’ kingdom isn’t flesh and blood, but of spirit and truth.
But let’s say that I’m being nitpicky about his paraphrase of scripture. Our preacher isn’t out of the woods yet. In a later scene in War Within The Cartel, El Cardenal co-interrogates a church member and gives him false comfort shortly before the church goer is murdered by another member of the Santa Blanca cartel. El Cardenal shows no sympathy for the innocent man as he steps over his corpse.
What kind of Church is this?
El Cardenal sports black nail-polish (not a sin, just a little emo), misquotes the Bible, has an abundance of skull related jewelry and ornaments (related to Santa Muerte), and wears a knife around his neck. Yeah, look closely at his large “cross” and you’ll see that it’s a weapon made for stabbing.
How then is this “church” functional? They are clearly blind to what a horrible, unrighteous church leader they have. They apparently don’t mind that their pastor misrepresents the Bible, and speaks far too kindly of the drug cartel. I just assume that they don’t know that their own are being murdered for not being completely in favor of the cartel’s actions.
What Ubisoft thinks of El Cardenal
From the Ghost Recon Wildlands page dedicated to El Cardenal (emphasis mine):
According to Narrative Director Sam Strachman, “What’s interesting about El Cardenal is that he is genuinely a nice guy. He’s trying to do charity work helping Bolivians, building schools and churches, but neither the church nor the politicians will help him. He knows the evil things that the cartel is doing, but he thinks that all the good he can do will help outweigh the bad…”
The real problem here isn’t what fictional characters are doing. Fictional characters performing noble deeds isn’t noble, it’s fiction. Similarly, Fictional characters being evil isn’t evil, it’s make-believe. No, the problem is that the writers behind Wildlands actually believe that a sick, scripture-twisting, murder accomplice liar is “genuinely a nice guy”!
Furthermore, Ubisoft seem pleased to have no positive representative from the religious faithful. If there were some force for good within the church it would lend some balance to the story. It’s as if they are saying, “Only ‘The Ghosts’ can resolve this situation”. I understand that The Ghosts are the “heroes” and that they need to slay the villains. It just seems that the creative team behind Wildlands has a gripe with the Church, and this is an outlet for them. Disparaging Jesus and his followers does nothing to add to the heroism of an elite military unit. It’s just a subversive slap in the face to players who have faith.
It’s right there on the screengrab from the official website, under “Personality” it lists: “Extreme zealot. Very loud and boisterous. A true believer.” Really, Ubisoft, that’s what you think a true believer is like? Christians now have a reason, other than wonky vehicle controls, to stay away from Ghost Recon Wildlands.
The members of the Santa Blanca Cartel are religious adherents of Santa Muerte, a Mexican Folk religion that is an intentional bastardization of Catholicism and has been condemned by the Vatican.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Muerte
I get that. What I don’t get is that marketing can say “Most of the people who are following Santa Muerte are wonderful people” (http://www.polygon.com/features/2017/1/18/14309524/ghost-recon-wildlands-santa-muerte-cartel-bolivia) and that El Cardenal is a “true believer”, and then depict him as a monster. That seems to suggest that they think “true believers” are the worst of the bunch. I could give them a pass if not for Strachman’s comment of El Cardenal being a genuinely “nice guy”. I have a massively different definition for either the word “genuine” or “nice”.
BTW, thanks for your comment. I want to talk this out to see if I’m blowing the subject out of proportion. But the more I read from Ubi, the more it seems they have either
a) done a horrible job researching and in fact don’t know what they are talking about; or
b) are using Santa Muerte as a cloak to attack Christianity.
It would have been good if a line in War Within The Cartel criticized El Cardenal for “misquoting” scripture. But instead he was criticized for “quoting” it! The problem is he wasn’t quoting it.
Orion, I’m not sure you played thru the entire game to completion when writing this piece. I also appreciate this was written 8-9 months ago.
However, I hope this sheds some light on the subject:
1. It is important to note for readers that Ubisoft writes for mature audiences in mind allowing for less Black and White / Cookie Cutter characters and scenarios.
There is, for instance, the scientist who is plucked from the States to create and teach others how to make a better product. In his mind, he’s not actually producing and manufacturing actual cocaine. He is simply combing legal ingredients to make a better product, which is eventually cocaine. He rationalizes his success as scientific endeavors.
On the “good” guy side, there is Karen Bowman, the Ghost’s Handler, who often blurs lines to ensure a succesful outcome. In fact, there is a “bad” and “good” ending reflecting realistic scenarios for this character.
2. The whole religion aspect is a reflection of El Sueno and his God Complex. He was able to find a narcistic and flawed Defrocked Priest. All scripture mentioned is perverted because the Santa Muerte Priest believes it to be true. If Ubisoft is bashing Christianity than we must look at movies and books with characters that are Anti-Christian.
BTW, it is true that Santa Muerte is a religion using symbols and signs borrowing from Christian Church. The RC publicly denounces this religion. So, a Defrocked Priest is a plausible scenario.
3. Or, you could argue Ubisoft is bashing all forms of institutions from government, military, religion, and general public. In fact, some argue on Reddit that this game is farcical in nature and a veneer morality tale. For instance, there are many crosses in the game. As Christians, the cross is a symbol for hope in Christ and a reminder that death has no victory. Look what happens when religion (Santa Muerte in this case) is used for scare tactics…. No Victory and only ruin.
Lastly, to circle back to the Priest: the character is a nut job but charismatic and able to manipulate the masses. I think this is important to understand that he is only using whatever at his disposal to gain power and control.
Hope this helps.
Patrick, first let me say that the time you’ve taken to engage me on this point of discussion is much appreciated. In my experience, many of the topics I write about on this blog would be more productive on a place like Reddit, if it weren’t for the fact that it they would draw so much criticism and downvotes as to not be a constructive discussion at all. Thanks for your contribution to this discussion.
Just before writing this, I had begun to notice things in the Ubisoft catalog of games that seemed to indicate a general, and almost specific, disrespect for the Christian faith. I’m not typically overly sensitive to this type of thing, but maybe I’m getting to be that way with my increase in years (and hopefully, maturity). The Assassin’s Creed series with it’s unnecessary inclusion of aliens as “the higher power” is an example. You could also point to Far Cry 5, where the bible is once again twisted to meet some sicko’s ends. According to the FC5 story, faith isn’t a virtue, it’s a tool by which wicked men can deceive small-minded people.
Back to the case of Wildlands. Look at that quote from the Narrative Director that I included. He is claiming that the backstory of this wicked priest puts him in a better light than either the game or movie show. If he had claimed El Cardinale was a bad priest and an evil man, it would show that he recognizes the severe moral depravity of the character. Instead, he lauds him as a “genuinely nice guy”. This tells me that Ubisoft has an upside-down view of morality and the church.
Honestly, as much as I like a playthrough of quite a few Ubisoft games, this direction makes me want to avoid giving them any more of my gaming dollar. If the team was truly comprised by people of many religions and such that they claim in the opening screens, where was the Christian developer arguing for more balance? If I were on the team, I’d demand an actual good representation of the Christian faith to balance out the evil representation. Since it’s not there, the narrative slant is that Christianity has no power but to deceive.
Oh, and movies are just as guilty of this narrative slant. For some reason, a guy can’t be a Christian in a movie unless he’s wearing a collar, and he has to be naïve and weak. These are the Hollywood rules. It’s bad from a number of standpoints, not the least of which is that it’s terrible storytelling. Writers should be aiming to avoid tropes instead of filling their movie with them so much as to make it a parody of other movies.
I hope I don’t come off as bitter or over-sensitive. I’m just expressing some thoughts. Thanks again for partaking in the discourse.