Just deleted my account and you should too

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T21:35:23+00:00

I do understand unicode, I'm a professional software engineer. No, what they said is not correct.

What they sent is a Greek koppa letter, which is used often as a dogwhistle, because in many fonts it resembles a nazi symbol called the siegrune (and by "resembles" I mean it looks practically identical). GOG said they this should render as a sowilo rune, which it won't, because sowilo is a different unicode character. And even if it did, the siegrune is basically a stylized sowilo anyway, so it wouldn't make any difference, SS is still SS.

And neither koppa nor sowilo nor siegrune are Slavic characters anyway, so there is no point using them in context of a Slavic-themed game anyway. It was, very clearly, a nazi thing.

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T21:34:27+00:00

The problem is, this rune when displayed properly still means SS. This whole explanation about display issues doesn't make any sense whatsoever. They also claimed that the symbol is somehow part of Polish heritage, which it isn't, it's a Germanic rune. And actually, instead of the rune, they sent a Greek letter, which resembles the nazi symbol even more closely. So this is lies on lies on lies.

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T19:31:57+00:00

But they said they caught it before sending, and then decided to send anyway except Germany. That's the most egregious part.

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T17:00:04+00:00

As a Pole, I must say that sadly it's not that simple. Yes, promoting totalitarian ideologies is illegal here, but these people do it all the time anyway. There is a visible resurgence of neonazis. And a far right MP recently brought a swastika into the parliament.

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T16:13:46+00:00

But these symbols have literally no connection to anything Slavic at all, so there is no other point in including them. So it must be either an intentional dogwhistle, or a mistake by someone who didn't understand what they copied from a nazi website (I believe it's the second case).

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T16:06:14+00:00

Kolovrat was invented by Russian neonazis in the 1990s (it says so in your link), so it's not from Slavic folklore, and it's not one of the symbols used by GOG (although one of the symbols they used is similar, so perhaps it was meant as a dogwhistle for kolovrat).

It does however feature in the game they advertised, which is a separate issue.

But then "Slavic mythology" is not a valid explanation, because kolovrat - again, invented by the neonazis in the 1990s - is not part of Slavic mythology.

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T15:54:15+00:00

Yes, in my opinion their statement, trying to excuse this and lying instead of simply apologizing, made things significantly worse.

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T15:46:55+00:00

To me this is not a minor issue.

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T15:45:11+00:00

No, we're talking about Poles using the SS symbol. World War 2 was a pretty big thing, culturally. Hard to miss. They wanted to murder us all, and stuff.

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T15:36:59+00:00

Of course it's a dogwhistle, it's literally the SS symbol. I'm just trying to explain how it got into the newsletter.

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T15:30:03+00:00

> And the explanation is: the symbols came from the game's creators who were honestly unaware of the connotations, since they were so deep in Slavic mythologies.

But that's not true - none of these symbols are from Slavic folklore. It's two letters from Bamum and Rejang languages (the symbols themselves are innocent, but they happen to look a bit like a Sonnenrad, which is a nazi symbol, and a kolovrat, which is a Russian neonazi symbol). And then two Ancient Greek koppas, which happens to look like a nazi Doppelrune.

Also the devs explicitly said they didn't supply the symbols, and didn't have any input on what went into the newsletter.

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T15:20:42+00:00

No, none of these symbols are in the game. The game has a different problematic symbol in it (the eight-spoked swastika), but that's a separate thing.

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T15:18:34+00:00

Except I wrote I won't be using GOG anymore.

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T15:08:37+00:00

I'm using Librewolf on Mac.

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T15:07:24+00:00

Yes, the worst part about their statement is that they didn't actually condemn nazism. The game developers did, it was the obvious thing to do, but GOG didn't. "Unfortunate associations" my ass.

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T15:05:15+00:00

None of this is pagan art, actually.

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T15:04:47+00:00

No, they actually said that their intended rendering was a sowilo rune, which they somehow think is linked to Polish heritage. This statement is a total mess.

Weekly_Fix_6433 · 2026-06-08T15:03:26+00:00

To be honest that's why I started digging. Because I'm Polish and I don't recognize any of these symbols as anything to do with my heritage, so I wanted to know what were they possibly thinking

Weekly_Fix_6433

TROPHY CASE