Re:Is Cyberpunk Dead? A Conversation with Bruce Bethke
by badsectoracula on Friday August 28, 2020 @07:06PM
(#24311412)
Yes there are some other tropes that are into play, but those aren't always important - e.g. there are Cyberpunk works where you do not play the antihero or villain. E.g. in movies Alex Murphy in Robocop isn't exactly an antihero and certainly not a villain. Similar in games with JC Denton in Deus Ex (though of course in such games this particular aspect isn't clear since it is up to the player - but you are essentially playing as a glorified cop).
That some popular works in the genre share some of these tropes doesn't mean that the genre is all about those tropes.
In Neuromancer the protag murders a bunch of people in an office building because he and his friends want to steal something in the basement of the building. If you set that story in the modern day readers would likely have far more empathy toward the victims of the attack. If you put that story into the startrek universe and readers likely wouldn't finish the book. The aesthetics of Cyberpunk is a sleight of hand that let's get away with themes that you couldn't tell in other genres.