“I am Fond of Pigs.” (2024)

Please bear with me as I geek out for a bit.

It’s currently winter break, which means I finally have time to relax and recharge. For me, that means playing video games like Civilization VI.

If you’re not familiar with Civilization (which I’ll call Civ from now on since it’s much shorter), it’s a strategy game that lets players guide a civilization from ancient eras to modern day, developing your lands and interacting with other civilizations as you grow. One aspect of Civ that is a staple of the strategy genre is the tech tree, a hierarchy of scientific technologies that must be researched in some given order for your civilization to progress over time.

Traditionally, Civ has portrayed itself as an expansive game that sincerely celebrates the pinnacles of human achievement. You play as great leaders from world history, build famous wonders like the Pyramids of Giza, found and spread religions of your own creation, etc. To match this spirit, each time you finish researching a tech in the tech tree, a pop-up appears with a quote and a solemnly narrated voiceover embellishing the technology you have just unlocked.

For example, in the predecessor to Civ VI (appropriately titled Civ V), upon researching one of the first techs, Animal Husbandry, the following quote is displayed.

“Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.”
— The Bible, Deuteronomy, 25:4

Ooh, a Bible verse. That’s about as formal as a quote can get. On the surface, Deuteronomy 25:4 is a fancy way of saying treat your farm animals well, which fits the concept of animal husbandry. Metaphorically, the quote is a reminder to take care of the people who support you. That could mean paying your workers fair wages, or being kind to those who may be weaker than you. There’s a lot of layers to unpack in this quote, and it certainly adds to the aura of insight and discovery.

Now, imagine my first time playing Civ VI. The tech tree has remained mostly the same — I start the game by researching Animal Husbandry, and the following pop-up appears.

“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”
— Winston S. Churchill

Wait, what? My civilization has just discovered how to raise farm animals — that’s how monumental this is! We have stepped out of the shadows and cast hunter-gathering aside…and this historic moment is marked with — a pig joke? By Winston Churchill? To add insult to injury, this quote is accompanied by a serious deadpan voiceover from none other than Sean Bean. Wow. So much talent wasted on so little.

Many of the research quotes in Civ VI have imitated this flair. Instead of celebrating a new discovery, Civ VI quotes seem to have opted for a humorous approach instead, sharing tongue-in-cheek sarcasm whenever a tech is completed. Needless to say, I was pretty miffed at first. These jokes broke my immersion and reminded me that for all of its grandeur, Civ can still be a gimmicky video game. However, I’ve been a Civ fan for years — it’ll take a lot more than bad quotes to stop me from playing.

Over time, I got used to hearing these quotes as I progressed through each of my games. Interestingly enough, at some point I stopped caring about my immersion, and I began to legitimately like the quotes— they’re funny. It’s honestly refreshing to hear an iconic actor deliver some of the strangest, most out-of-context sentences I’ve ever heard.

“Never criticize a rifleman until you have walked a mile in his shoes. That way, he’ll be barefoot, and you’ll be out of range.”
— The 2nd Target Company

I’m unsure why the game developers chose to change their quotes to be more absurd in Civ VI compared to previous installations. Regardless of their intentions, my evolving perspective on these quotes made me reconsider my broader viewpoints. Civ is a video game after all, and I’m probably taking it far too seriously, but what if I’m treating history as a whole too seriously as well?

My initial outrage was spurred by my common belief in the sanctity of history — the idea that the origin stories of our people and our cultures must be treated with the utmost respect. Funny quotes can be entertaining, but they violate this respect. On the flip side, history was at one point reality; although time has turned these stories into legends, it’s worth noting that famous people and events may have been just as mundane as what you and I do on a regular basis today.

To put it less vaguely, we often place tales from the past up on a pedestal, a strong example of which is Great Man history. This concept is based on a theory that history is pushed forward by the actions of a few great men, blessed with some natural gifts or talents to change the world. While many people today would disagree with this take, we can still paradoxically see that our thinking of history is still oriented around the actions of a few famous individuals — the Winston Churchills, the Mansa Musas, the Mahatma Gandhis. These names and their deeds have been elevated to a legendary status, commanding instant attention and credibility whenever they are mentioned.

And yet, back when these famous figures were still alive, they were as human as everyone else. It can be healthy to take a step back and turn our reverence for history down a notch — after all, we may warp the truth when we treat it with too much respect. I’m not arguing that these great men aren’t deserving of praise, as that is a separate issue that deserves its own discussion. Rather, we should take our mythos of history with a grain of salt, understanding that any story that has become famous has most likely been embellished beyond reality. Were Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan really war gods on the battlefield? Were Qin Shi Huang and Ramesses II really imperial visionaries who conceived the history’s iconic wonders? I’d wager half of it is based on historical fact, but the other half is positive spin, propaganda if you will, that has built up over the ages. Ironically, in the words of another “Great Man”,

“History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte

Whew, okay. That was a pretty deep dive for a line of thinking triggered by a video game mechanic. Even so, I think the conclusions still have merit — the flamboyant quotes in Civ VI might be an acquired taste, but they definitely encourage players to take history a little less seriously. Humor humanizes these historic events and makes them feel more accessible, and at the end of the day, bringing players closer to history is what Civilization is all about.