On January 6, supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol during a joint session of Congress that was to certify the Electoral College vote in President-elect Joe Biden’s favor. During the chaos — in which congressional leaders were evacuated, improvised explosive devices were planted, and rioting occurred — a symbol from the Dishonored series could be spotted in amid the carnage.
One of the participants sported an Outsider’s Mark from Dishonored on his left hand. In the game series’ universe, the Mark is a branding given by the Outsider to individuals he deems intriguing. The Mark grants the bearer supernatural powers and is sported by several playable characters in the series.
Following the storming of the US Capitol, several Twitter users claimed that the Outsider’s Mark is an Antifa symbol as supposed evidence that the entire event was a false flag operation conducted by the left-wing political movement at the expense of Trump supporters. Dishonored co-creator Harvey Smith took to Twitter to debunk the conspiracy theory by connecting the tattoo to his series.
It is certainly unfortunate timing that this news has come out, with Smith recently announcing that he had returned to Arkane Austin to work on a new IP with Prey developers. There is also the notable irony of a Dishonored symbol being at the storming of the US Capitol, considering the game’s story of overthrowing a government which seized power in a corrupt manner and its plague-ridden setting. While real-life has something similar to the game’s plague in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it must be noted that Joe Biden was democratically elected by the people while the Lord Regent in the Dishonored game seized power in a coup.
This is not the first time a pop culture symbol has been appropriated by Trump supporters without consideration of its meaning or the media it came from. Besides Rage Against the Machine songs, a Trump supporter was spotted back in November 2020 wearing the outfit of Homelander, the antagonist of the TV series The Boys, much to the disgust of the show’s developer Eric Kripke and actor Antony Starr, who plays the character.
Besides this notable crossover with gaming culture, the storming of the US Capitol has had some huge ramifications in the wider community. Twitch announced that it had removed the famous PogChamp emote following comments made on Twitter by the face of the image, Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez, regarding yesterday’s events.
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