The most telling example of how gray morality undercuts storytelling is the infamous betrayal by Daisy Fitzroy, a black revolutionary from
BioShock Infinite. She’s revealed to be just as corruptible by the allure of power as her racist enemies, even as she was fighting for her people’s emancipation from slavery.
The white protagonist, Booker DeWitt, even spells it out. “The only difference between Comstock [the game’s Big Bad] and Fitzroy is how you spell the name,” he says. It’s a damning conclusion that the rebel faction is just as unethical as the nation’s leaders, while plainly ignoring that its depiction of Jim Crow-era racism contained real-life parallels to the events that birthed the American Civil War.
We don’t need more redemption stories about villains or tales about the corruptibility of heroes
What feels infuriating about this perspective is this: If you don’t fight for your rights in the correct way —
the polite, civil way that fits snugly within the frameworks of society — you will be tarred with the same brush as those who are actively bolstering the forces behind inequality.