Breivik and WOW

Muppetier

The Daily Telegraph reporting from the trial in Norway today. Press are going to love this.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/9206193/Norway-killer-Anders-Behring-Breivik-trial-live.html

 

if you were asked how an unemployed, psychotic fantasist would fill his many empty hours, you would predict that he would submerge himself in some wantonly violent, virtual reality computer game.

Breivik mastered all 85 levels of "World of Warcraft"."

It seems as if Svein Holden is suggesting a link between Breivik's fantastical ideas to his absorption in World of Warcraft, a multi-player game. He projects a still from World of Warcraft, with a character called "Justicar Andersnordic", suggesting a clear parallel between his character in the game, and Breivik's belief that he is a member of the Knights Justiciar, a secret anti-Islamic movement.

As if to underline Breivik's sad withdrawn life before his attacks, Mr Holden is showing a photo of Breivik's bedroom, where, he says Breivik spent a year playing World of Warcraft "full-time", living off his savings.

 

almalexius

Breivik mastered all 85 levels of "World of Warcraft"." 

What a joke. Like he had to "master" that to kill 77 people.

Volkmar

I had heard though that the WoW screenshot was used more to show what a recluse and socially awkward person Breivik was than to imply the game was a cause of its problems.

 

evilastro

While I dont think MMOs are the cause, I think they can certainly form a cess pit for extremists. Lets face it, there are some real nutjobs in MMO communities.

These mentally ill unemployed people are living in online communities with complete anonymity to share their vitriol with each other without any real repurcussions. They have no concept of the real world and lap up media anti-islam rhetoric. It doesnt surprise me that it builds up into hate crimes.

That being said, I think the right wing media is more to blame than anything else with all the fear mongering about terrorism.

Faelan

I read a Danish news article saying that he has stated that he did WoW for fun and Call of Duty for training purposes, but he didn't enjoy CoD. From what I can gather, he already had these insane plans long before starting on WoW, but I bet some people will use this anyway to promote the "video games lead to violence" and "WoW turns you into an addict" ideas. The strange thing is, if he had become so addicted to WoW that he couldn't let it go, then maybe he would have screwed his life up so much that he would have been unable to carry out his plans to the full extend that he did.