These days I have been playing the catalog of the PlayStation 1 and 2 games that marked me when I was young or at the time I couldn’t play: the trilogy of Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Rayman, Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, Ratchet and Clank, etc… And I realized that nowadays you practically don’t see characters like that in video games anymore.
Just as there was a time when all games were made for children, nowadays it seems that all games are made for teenagers and adults. Even those that don’t seem to be, such as Astrobot, appeal to the nostalgia of the more adult public.
What kind of heroes does my nephew have, for example? There’s Sonic, and it’s something in which we have a connection, but Sonic and other heroes that still remain current, like Mario or Link, are from an era that long predates him and perhaps for him they feel more like a thing of the past, similar to how I feel about Sailor Moon or Mazinger Z, which were heroes of my older siblings and parents respectively.
I don’t know of any heroes that are specifically intended to appeal to young people like my nephew, at least not in a “wholesome” way. Much of what he likes was not made with the child audience in mind, such as Five Nights At Freddy’s or Among Us; and what does, was made for more predatory motives, such as Poppy Playtime or Garten of Banban. The only thing I can think of is Minecraft and… I don’t know, it just doesn’t add up for me.
My nephew doesn’t have a Crash, a Spyro, a Sly to be nostalgic about when he gets to my age.
It’s a little… Bleak…
Why are heroes so important? Role models are one thing, but hero worship is an incredibly problematic concept especially at a young age. The idea of an unquestionably good person is a myth that lends itself to authoritarianism, and that should die a slow agonizing death. It’s a little much to get deep into stuff like that for a kids game, but I’m certainly not sad to see “blindly good” characters go - it’s why Bluey is nice for how imperfect the parents are, even if they’re still an unrealistic ideal with how much time and energy the parents have.
Ok, but my idea of “hero” is more based on the “role model” that you say. I totally agree with what you say that hero worship is one of the points that leads to the proliferation of fascism, it’s just that I get the impression that children now have no role models, at least not as we had back then, models for them, of their time. Not in video games at least, in series maybe there are, like in Bluey as you say.
(I was thinking of mentioning Paw Patrol, but that’s Copaganda and it’s a nono for me).