A Cyborg Manifesto Character Analysis

Like how some Overwatch characters personify Haraway’s boundary breakdowns, one Overwatch character, “Genji,” personifies Haraway’s cyborg metaphor. Not only is Genji’s character design that of an actual cyborg, but his backstory also reflects Haraway’s description of the cyborg. Therefore, Genji acts as the literal representation of Haraway’s metaphor. In “A Cyborg Manifesto,” Haraway says that cyborgs “are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism.” It is important to note that Genji has not always been a cyborg. He was born human and the youngest son of a primogeniture-practicing criminal clan leader, making Genji illegitimate in that he cannot inherit the clan as he is not the firstborn son. From a Marxist perspective, …show more content…
Zenyatta, who played a huge role in Genji’s acceptance of his cyborg body, says in-game, “Life is more than a series of ones and zeroes.” Since ones and zeroes are often used to represent binaries when coding, Zenyatta, like Haraway, rejects binaries. With Zenyatta’s teachings in mind, Genji eventually reconciles “his dual existence as both man and machine… and in doing so, he has discovered a higher humanity.” To this effect, by choosing to accept his cyborg body, Genji destroys the boundary between human and omnic, effectively serving the purpose of the cyborg “metaphor” in Overwatch. The rejection of boundaries between human and omnic was also made clear in the Overwatch short film, “Dragons.” In it, the cyberized Genji presents himself to his human older brother Hanzo, who for so many years thought that Genji was dead. Upon Hanzo’s realization that the cyborg standing in front of him is his brother, the camera slowly closes in on Genji’s darkened eyes. The camera then suddenly changes from the close-up on Genji’s (a cyborg) eyes to Hanzo’s (a human), emphasizing oneness and therefore the absence of boundaries between human and …show more content…
As such, media texts like Overwatch often take the pleasure of using Haraway’s cyborg metaphor to convey their message about hegemony. In Overwatch’s case, the game uses the metaphor to analyze and break the boundaries between omnics (the oppressed) and humans (the oppressors). Perhaps by employing Haraway’s cyborg metaphor to eliminate binaries, Overwatch is also hoping to tackle real world issues that plague society to this day: racism, discrimination, and sexism, to name a few. However, the common thread that binds most of these issues together is that they all have problems related to power – there is always an oppressed and there is always an oppressor. Perhaps underneath all the guns and fighting and blood, Overwatch, like Haraway, is only really trying to tell its players one thing, which was best said by an omnic preacher in Overwatch’s short film, “Alive”: “Human, machine, we are all one within the iris. I see a future: humans and omnics standing together and united by compassion, goals, and