The You Testament 2 Part #10 - MDickie Doesn't Care About Black People

Part 10: MDickie Doesn't Care About Black People

Update 10: MDickie Doesn't Care About Black People

Welcome back. Last time, Muhammad and the Muslims finally took their ball and left Mecca.

This be some Jim Jones shit right here.

However, one member of the group doesn't follow Muhammad.

~~Agahnim~~ En Sabah Nur questions him.

I find that the game becomes much funnier when you mentally replace references to Muhammad with references to MDickie, and references to the tenets of Islam to MDickie's cracked-out world view. It applies just as well most of the time, and exposes even more of the depths of MDickie's egomaniacal dickery.

I am constantly surprised that MDickie's endless parade of strawmen somehow get more and more ridiculous as the game goes on. At first it was just Snidely Whiplash, who was...well, Snidely Whiplash. Tying young religions to train tracks is his gig, it's like yelling at a dog for pooping in the begonias. He steps up his game with the knuckleheaded civilians and Molestro, continues getting flagrant with Andrew Ryan in the desert, and nose-dives into the seas of batshit with how the Christian and Jewish leaders meet Muhammad, despite that being how they would have ordinarily met a 'prophet.' The reason they become ridiculous is that Muhammad instantly becomes bros with them.

Now, all of a sudden, we have the classic "moron who denounces what he does not know isn't that silly" strawman that was already beaten to death around the time the Epic of Gilgamesh was written.

The most infuriating thing about all these strawmen is that most serve to reduce complex foils for an infant religion - ones that are essential to understand in order to realize how Islam became what it is - to mustache-twirling idiots with their feet shoved solidly into their mouths, all in the name of making prophet Muhammad so wholesome, holy and perfect that he shits rainbows while his opponents eat babies and rape your childhood.

Note that 'wholesome, holy and perfect' are the CHRISTIAN viewpoints of such, which makes the religious scholar in me run around screaming incoherently. It's like hearing a Nordic Myth interpretation of the life of Christ. It just doesn't gel.

Surah 10:39 posted:

39. Nay, they charge with falsehood that whose knowledge they cannot compass, even before the elucidation thereof hath reached them: thus did those before them make charges of falsehood: but see what was the end of those who did wrong!

After a few hundred feet, we get from the gates of Mecca to the gates of Medina.

I was just in there with Muhammad to meet the Jews, you liar. There ARE no houses in there. It's a courtyard with a little pond!

Hey look, it's the Giving Tree.

God, I love the facial expressions this shitty engine can make.

MDickie's flagrant abuse of punctuation makes me incoherently angry?

God, that arched eyebrow expression is still the

est thing I've ever seen in my entire life.

One who is more horribly written, 'perfect,' infallible and generally infuriating than Wesley Crusher, mind.

Surah 16:41 posted:

41. To those who leave their homes in the cause of Allah, after suffering oppression,- We will assuredly give a goodly home in this world; but truly the reward of the Hereafter will be greater. If they only realised (this)!

MDickie posted:

Although it's true that people competed to house Muhammad, in real life he left his camel to roam and vowed to make his home wherever it stopped. Unfortunately, this charming episode was not possible in the game! He also built the world's first mosque in Medina at this juncture, but in the game the whole city is just a nondescript walled enclosure.

Read: I am too incompetent to model anything other than a human.

Well, let's head into Medina and

HOLY MOTHER OF EVIL EYES! Oh wait, that's just Muhammad still recovering from me accidentally blasting him with Satan Explosions.

And here we get to the part I've been hinting at for a while.

That's a damned dirty lie, En Sabah Nur. You and I both know that bassoons are douchebags.

Every now and then the person talking will stare directly into the camera despite their normal scripting. This is A Bad Thing To Do, MDickie. Especially when your NPCs have dead, soulless eyes.

Here's a fun game, try counting up the things about this screenshot that are ludicrous. Go for a high score!

Hey, look, MDickie got something sort of right!

When we hear the call, let us pray towards Mecca and invoke the power of Allah to restore faith!

Surah 2:144 posted:

144. We see the turning of thy face (for guidance to the heavens: now Shall We turn thee to a Qibla that shall please thee. Turn then Thy face in the direction of the sacred Mosque: Wherever ye are, turn your faces in that direction. The people of the Book know well that that is the truth from their Lord. Nor is Allah unmindful of what they do.

Hadith 8:397 posted:

While the people were offering the Fajr prayer at Quba (near Medina), someone came to them and said: "It has been revealed to Allah's Apostle tonight, and he has been ordered to pray facing the Ka'ba." So turn your faces to the Ka'ba. Those people were facing Sham (Jerusalem) so they turned their faces towards Ka'ba (at Mecca).

See what that Hadith says? THEY PRAYED TOWARD JERUSALEM FIRST. Smack-talking Jerusalem like that would have been gravely frowned upon.

MDickie posted:

In real life, Muslims originally prayed towards Jerusalem and not Mecca until much later. I have them pray towards Mecca at the earliest possible opportunity because of the condensed timeline (and also because Jerusalem doesn't exist on the map!).

I can sort of buy this explanation, though.

So, after the cutscene, something...incredibly goofy happens.

An obviously 'borrowed' voice clip of a muezzin singing out "Allahu Akbar!" [God is Great!] plays, and everyone bows toward Mecca. It's really hard to express in words just how confounding this is to see and hear for the first time. From now on, this will happen several times in an in-game day, as a voice sings out a phrase in Arabic and the Muslims in the area immediately drop anything they're doing to bow to Mecca. This includes "trying to escape from the guards."

Oh, I nearly forgot. History or religion buffs may have noticed he completely failed to mention Bilal. Bilal. Y'know, the slave he bought? Adopted him as a son? Was inspired by his beautiful voice to create the muezzin in the first place? Beloved by black Muslims? That Bilal?

You know the most annoyingly offensive part?

MDickie posted:

In reality, the freed slave Bilal was chosen to be the voice of the "call to prayer". In the game, it was supposed to be the player but turned out to be no one in particular.

He knew this, he acknowledges this, and still was going to have YOU usurp the guy's role, while putting him into the game as Random Slave. AND THEN HE DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO DO THAT. IT'S APPARENTLY A MAGICAL SKY VOICE FROM NOWHERE NOW.

Oh hey, it's the guy missing a leg from Mina! He's still kicking!

I love you, Crippley.

Let's talk to Muhammad again.

I'm not entirely sure who En Sabah Nur is talking about here.

, DAMN.

Man, that old guy is staring holes through the back of Muhammad's head...

Funnily enough this is similar to a story about Bilal, for Muhammad said something very similar when somebody complained that Bilal had a speech impediment that prevented him from pronouncing the letter 'sheen' correctly.

Also, the old guy?

Still terrifying. Also take a shot.

Hadith 8:394 posted:

The Prophet prayed (and the subnarrator Ibrahim said, "I do not know whether he prayed more or less than usual"), and when he had finished the prayers he was asked, "O Allah's Apostle! Has there been any change in the prayers?" He said, "What is it?' The people said, "You have prayed so much and so much." So the Prophet bent his legs, faced the Qibla and performed two prostrations (of Sahu) and finished his prayers with Tasiim (by turning his face to right and left saying: 'As-Salamu'Alaikum-Warahmat-ullah'). When he turned his face to us he said, "If there had been anything changed in the prayer, surely I would have informed you but I am a human being like you and liable to forget like you. So if I forget remind me and if anyone of you is doubtful about his prayer, he should follow what he thinks to be correct and complete his prayer accordingly and finish it and do two prostrations (of Sahu)."

Wait a second...is that Bilal back there? You're telling me he was hard-coded to a Muslim and MDickie STILL didn't incorporate him? Ugh.

Fun fact: veils don't count as clothing when you turn invisible. Still doesn't let anyone see you though.

After goofing off for a bit inside the city, I head outside to find this tiny greaser in dire straits.

Take a shot.

In addition to everyone staggering around dehydrated, Iblis is running around punching people in the face. Connection?

The tiny greaser was right: there's no more water anywhere now.

Is Allah angry that we left Mecca? Or is it because we prayed to the Ka'ba?

We find Muhammad chilling on a bone-dry shore.

This scene is sort of a relapse to the You Testament's laid-back asshole version of Jesus.

It also forces you to realize you're more than just a body. There's more to life than food and water. The spiritual waters of Allah have been flowing through all our actions and you shall see them gush once more...

Take a shot.