In the New Thief Game, Garrett is the 99 Percent

This new trailer to the revival of the classic Thief franchise came out a couple weeks ago, but seeing as I got my start in games writing about the very first Thief games, I still wanted to mention it here, and note how much the storyline evokes the Occupy movement and overall disenchantment with the super-wealthy, seen through the filter of the game world's alternate universe, steampunk-spiked City:

While the political edge seems much more explicit than the original games from a decade-plus back, the tension between the rich and the poor was still a visible theme in those games too. Like I wrote then:

In Thief I and II, the player moves through a nameless city that somehow evokes the entire history of Western civilization, from the Dark Ages to now, in a way that’s entirely plausible and visually staggering. Cat-walking atop castles that look like luxury apartments and cathedrals that seem like corporate offices, it’s almost like clambering through a model of our cultural psyche, as intricately tooled as a handcrafted timepiece.

Can't wait to see how that timepiece has evolved. Ironically, I think a lot of younger gamers will wonder why the new Thief game looks so much like Dishonored, without knowing it's actually the other way around.

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[Arcadia Codesmith]

I think this particular theme dates back to the first caveman to figure out how to make the rest of the tribe do all the work while he took the lion's share for sitting on his backside and "managing".

[Pussycat Catnap]

Occupy isn't about doing or taking back or anything. They're a protest movement based on a 'Like Button' mentality - do nothing but identify. They just stand there and exist, as if that would evoke change - while refusing to identify even what change they desire, let alone crafting a plan for how to do it.

They had a chance to be meaningful and rejected it in the name of not being 'co-opted' by organized labor / politics.

Occupy only has half the plan. They're good at chanting down Bablyon's downpression, but they're got no idea how to chant up folks among the 99%, and the only thing they have ever taken action on is resisting attempts to help them figure out how to achieve any goals.

This looks like a Robin Hood story of sorts. An 'anti-Batman' (Batman being a 1%er who always seems to be off beating up commoners in the 'ghetto' of Gotham).

Robin Hood wouldn't camp out on Wall Street with his band of Merry Men doing nothing but talking about 'where mah jobs @'... he'd go take what the people needed.

That tale, the Robin Hood one, is downright biblical in how long its been around (Yeshua, maybe David, Joshua, somewhat Moses - though he starts in the 1%). The key is in the call to action.

So Thief is striving to be an iconic heroic tale - the original hero - at least in this trailer. But I wouldn't disrespect it by equating it with Occupy.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

While much of the Occupy movement may have been little more than street theatre, it was successful in spawning smaller, more targeted groups that are proving very effective at achieving goals. Several branches are helping homeowners fight back against predatory lenders, and in many cases they're winning.

The initial protests were an incubation stage. Now those participants who are equipped to take action are doing so... and defying the stereotypical portrayal of themselves and their ideals.