To this day, I still can't get over the fact that the Ferngill Republic, the country Stardew Valley is in, is at war with another country on its southern border and that the Ferngill Republic is almost certainly the aggressor owning to the complete lack of damage towards Stardew Valley's infrastructure. Since Stardew Valley is a border town located at the Ferngill-Gotoro border, it doesn't make sense for Stardew Valley to not suffer damage to its infrastructure from the Gotoro military unless the Ferngill military invaded the Gotoro Empire and have the frontlines be miles south of the internationally recognized Ferngill-Gotoro border.
I used to rationalize this as the two countries preferring not to shit where they eat and duking it out over small tracks of land elsewhere of strategic and economic importance (like an unmentioned archipelago). Then SVE ruined it by adding a Gotoran character (Olivia) who’s worried about her relatives back home.
Would be nice, if there were a class traitor kulak path, to have an option where you amass large amounts of political-economic power and capital-strike the government into peace but I’m probably putting more thought into something the creator intended to be a cheap Iraq/Afghanistan vet analogue with Kent.
That's also something annoying since it (along with the Prairie King) implies the existence of guns when I'm risking my neck against eldritch horrors in Skull Cavern and Ridge Forest with a dinky little sword.
Someone should make a mod where you have a third option of starting your own farmer's market, and then you either slowly become a commune or another small business tyrant, based on things like whether you give away free food and whether you let other people join in.
He's a petite bourgeois parasite who underpays you for your produce, overcharges the townsfolk, and takes credit for high quality produce you sell him. Plus he's got that Mr Beast brain disease that makes him think enjoying himself is a waste of potential earning time, he never participates in festivals and instead operates a popup shop.
The only thing he has going for him is his opposition to Jojo, but that's not even on moral grounds, he just wants his own petite monopoly without the threat of a massive corporation running him out of business. Oh, and he punches the Jojo manager whats-his-nuts (I never interact with Jojo outside mandatory cutscenes) if you encourage him to.
Stardew is literally a petite bourgeois fantasy role play game. You inherit property from your grandpa in some cutesy pastoral town where everyone is a small business Kulak. The proletariat culture of the towns mining past totally erased by these upper middle class yeoman larpers who probably moved into the area when all the mining jobs dried up.
There should be a mod where the Red Guards come into Stardew and forcibly collectivize all your Kulak ass property to grow wheat for the proletariat.
It is a fun game tho I get to make such a cute farm!!!
Don't forget the fact that he's negligent towards his wife and daughter! And that his daughter may not be his own, depending on if you wanna go down the Rasmodius fan-theory rabbit hole.
takes credit for high quality produce you sell him
also implied when you give him really shitty, slightly rotten produce he'll feed it to his family to save a few pennies. abigail mentions having the thing you sold him for dinner last night and goes "I guess it was starting to go bad and my dad couldn't bear to throw it out!"
Three years ago we regarded a merchant as a completely respectable person. Provided his accounts were in order and he did not cheat or dupe his customer too obviously, he was rewarded with the title of “merchant of the first guild”, “respected citizen”, etc.
Since the revolution attitudes, to trade and merchants have changed radically. We now call the “honest merchant” a speculator, and instead of awarding him honorary tides we drag him before a special committee and put him in a forced labour camp. Why do we do this?’ Because we know that we can only build a new communist economy if all adult citizens are involved in productive labour.