: Re: Offensive aesthetics and naming conventions? So I'm writing a story that features an alien character, who happens to be a really "internet troll"-ish type with a somewhat godlike tech and a personal

@Gonzalez219

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Would this still be considered offensive by the majority of the readers?

Nazis are offensive, period, so yes. The motivations of the good guys in Nazi garb will just come off as incongruous, implausible, and confusing. When that happens, the writing is bad, and readers become alienated and drop their suspension of disbelief. In this case they'd think you are trying a bait-and-switch to trick them into having sympathy for Nazis.

Further: It isn't possible to follow the Geneva Convention "to a fault" unless there is something inherently wrong with the Geneva Convention that causes compliance to (in the long run) routinely create more harm than good.

I suppose that could be true of any system of rules, but I'd wager the vast majority of readers treat the Geneva Convention with respect or outright reverence without knowing any detailed logic analysis of it; thus they would reject the characterization of "to a fault".

Thus you have another element likely to alienate readers and trigger a collapse of their suspension of disbelief; bringing their mind out of "story mode" and into real-life critical analysis to resolve their confusion about what you are presenting.

Further, as part of the craft of writing, do not establish connections that are ultimately meaningless to the outcome of the story. Readers expect any connection you make, especially Act I connections, like a connection to Nazis, to bear fruit and influence the outcome of the story.

Your suggestion does not: If the good guys are really good and look or act like Nazis, but this resemblance has zero effect later in the story, then you have wasted their time at best, and at worst angered them by making Nazi-like people the heroes.

In fact there probably won't be any readers because the story you aren't really writing (I presume that is what the strikeout is supposed to mean) will never be published; any agent (or their professional reader) will put it down after a few pages and reject it outright, for the reasons I listed above.

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