Do not mourn, my mother, dear, Every pang will soon be o'er; For I hear the angel band Calling from their starry shore; Now I see their banners wave In the light of perfect day, though 'tis hard to part with you, Yet I would not wish to stay. For the dear old Flag I die, Mother, dry your weeping eye; For the honor of our land And the dear old Flag I die. Farewell mother, Death's cold hand Weighs upon my spirit now, And I feel his blighting breath Fan my pallid cheek and brow. Closer! closer! to your heart, Let me feel that you are by, While my sight is growing dim, For the dear old Flag I die. For the dear old Flag I die, Mother, dry your weeping eye; For the honor of our land And the dear old Flag I die.

Cotinuing off my last blog on Richter and why his presentation works so well, I feel like I ignored something. Something important. It's Richter's simple attitudes and sentiments in relation to the wider picture Hotline Miami 2 paints of its world and society. I feel like that touches on the wider topic of all the 50 Blessings agents and wannabe agents, and deserves it's own long blog. So here we go!

One of the most astounding things about the Hotline Miami francise -- other than the dearth of accurate thematic analysis on such a composed series by "professional" media analysts (read: badly paid marketers) -- is how true it is to the American culture and mindset. "This game is not from America," I still find myself thinking when I see characterizations like Jake and the 50 Blessings Manager hit nationalist movements on the head, "Swedes made this shit, how do Swedes even know THIS shit?"

First of all, I'm just going to say it: the Hotline Miami series is the greatest modern media portrayal of nationalism in America that I know of. It is actually beautiful. Every single little aspect of 50 Blessings' ideas and the sentiments of the people about them is true to life. Right-wing nationalists really do obsess over secrecy to not let the fact that they're gigantic assholes slip out. People like Biker and The Fans really do get caught up in the racisms of older people and veterans as a way to be aesthetic or edgy. And as Hotline Miami 2 heavily implies, the fault lies not with the leadership but with the followers and citizens of America who don't challenge their own decisions or pay real attention to what they want or value.

It's true that 50 Blessings is run by a mad General, but what is his philosophy? People only know their baser impulses, that they enjoy recieving and carrying out orders, that they enjoy anything animals would, killing (and in Martin Brown's case, raping) included. In the context of the series' cast, this is a completely valid philosophy. Every Hotline Miami character is unconcerned with wider pictures or good decisions in general, and the ones that are concerned for wider pictures (Biker and Evan), are both humbled by their incapacity to handle the full truth with their lifestyle intact. The Fans operate headless, without a central organization to make phone calls, but they still WANT phone calls. They WANT action and in the absense of a reason they'll invent one themselves. This in the context that they're actually war veterans themselves adds another layer of authenticity to the series: the difficulty of adapting to life after leaving the military. I have personal experience with this (less killing, fortunately), so Hotline Miami 2 always struck a chord with me as something that understands what it's like to, for lack of a better word, miss something.

But the point again: it's the characters themselves, not the leaders, who cause their troubles in the games. All it takes to beat Hotline Miami 2 is to stop playing it and the world is saved, but the player (and the characters with them) doesn't despite Richard's direct warnings that something bad will happen if you do. This puts the onus of making a better society on the player, -- and by analogy, on all Americans, not just our clandestine elite. I'd suggest that Richard is the notion that most everyone knows the right courses of action and are just too unwilling to do them.

Voltaire said "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him," and such is the case with the organizations in Hotline Miami 2. Jake actually independently "invents" 50 Blessings right in front of the Manager, further proving the point of the Fans' organization and the Colonel's speech that people really do lust for catharsis, violence and action. The calls are merely serving a function that is these people's inner desires, which exist with or without phone calls. Things like this are why the themes of nationalism and the ending scroll of For The Dear Old Flag I Die hits so close to home: it is earned entirely.

But what about Richter? He's not a nationalist, and he doesn't want the phone calls on any level, so how does he fit in? First of all you have to understand something about the military: it is a stress circuit. They want you to be so wound up that you actually couldn't forget how to do your job if you tried. The military robs you of your freedom, orders you to do things you don't want to do no matter how uncomfortable it makes you, and will imprison you if you disobey. This is why Richter works with the underlying themes of military backgrounds and nationalist goals: his levels are stress circuits that drill into you the correct ways to do things, the fast ways to move. And like many military men Richter cares primarily about the safety and defense of his family. And that's the family For The Dear Old Flag I Die is referencing in the mother. The mother in the song is analogous to Richter's own mother who he dies with, and you could imagine him comforting her with something similar to the song.

This blog was a lot less cited than I'd prefer, but what I'm saying has grounding in the games' sentiments and presentation. Feel free to write all this off as rambling if you see it that way, but as for me:

IWASBORNINTHEUSA