Is Joja that evil?

I see many people who thinks Joja is evil or it's bad,but I don't know why.I mean,yeah,the community center it's gone but at least they care about the town constructions unlike those lazy villagers.

 

it really depends on how you look at it, really. it's heavily implied that they are "evil" but to be honest i've played several hundred hours of stardew and frankly they are no more or less evil than some of the the townspeople who you are supposed to find endearing and understandable. the difference is primarily in that you are supposed to sympathize with villagers while morris(the face of joja) is a cartoon cut-out who you cannot even really talk to just react to and joja itself is only shown at it's literal worst and given almost no voice at all, frankly gus, lewis and pierre are all greedy and opportunistic businessmen but you are expected to feel they are poor suffering persons who /have/ to exploit others because they need to survive. clint leah demetrius alex and gunther all are pretty much self-centered creeps who demand to have their needs met without reimbursement while offering nothing for free in return but you are expected to feel it is simply because they are shy or lacking in worldliness. haley, pam, penny, george, shane are all nasty as fuck to you until you start giving them stuff with the implied reasoning being that it's your fault for not already being their friend(or in a few cases where you are treated in a hostile or unreasonable manner it is your fault for not being sympathetic enough to their plights) and while morris is one of the few character who wears all of these hats at once he's not the only one wearing them.

if joja is evil then by the same measure pelican town as a whole is evil since they both breed the same outcome through the abuse of the vulnerable and neither is repentant. long and short of it; if you can look at pelican town and can call it 'evil' then yes joja is evil, if not then no joja isn't evil

 

Okay, I'm willing to concede a couple of these points, but I gotta be honest, a lot of this is really confusing to me.

Gus? One of his earliest events is him giving away free food to the homeless guy in town because he doesn't want anyone to go hungry.

Penny is never rude to you, she's just very blatantly bad at coming up with conversational topics and gets awkward when she talks too much. She apologizes when she starts rambling about books. She's not hostile in the least, and I... am seriously struggling with how you'd see her that way.

Leah reaches out to you almost immediately if you talk to her, asking you about why you moved to the town and is rarely anything but friendly to you when you interact! Gunther also only ever asks for donations to the museum, he demands nothing, and he gives you PLENTY in return.

Sorry just... this is the least generous interpretation of characters I've ever read, some of it barely makes sense or outright contradicts their actual events.

Not everyone in the town is all that great, some of them are nasty and unpleasant. People are. But the majority of the town is perfectly nice to you, including some of the characters you've listed here? I really can't wrap my head around how you read them like this.

(I'm sorry, this probably sounds a lot more hostile than I'd like it too but I'm... actually very genuinely baffled by your interpretation of them. You're right on some of these counts, definitely! I can't stand Shane without mods that make him more tolerable, and Pam is... ugh, and I have nothing but contempt for Pierre, so. You're not wrong, I'm just a little confused, sorry.)

 

pelican townis a community, and Morris is willing to destroy it for money gain.... this answers the topic title's question: YES, they are evil
some people are somewhat pricks at the beginning, but at least open up at one point
George seems just grumpy, but when Penny apologises, he's like "sigh, no no, it's me who's just grumpy"
Pierre seems greedy, but what does one expect of a businessman? overall he still is nice, as he's not willing to let people pay more, just for a bigger gain
i must admit he's not that good of a father, but nowadays i barely see good parents in reallife

when outside, they sometimes greet each other, so they do care
Shane is just some shut in, who's having mental issues, so shuts himself from the rest of the world
there are people like that in reallife, but you'll never see them, as it's not a game where one can just talk to another person, as in reallife we can say "no thanks" or "leave me alone" without some "friendship point system"

Clint seems to have troubles interacting, and to me it's not a bad thing, so i don't see anything bad on him
sure, he's serious about upgrading your tools, but i guess he wants to sound like a worker, plus has a hard time working in the heat
he has just as much of an idea of how to approach a woman as i do.... well, not literally, but i also get somewhat numb from shyness

Lewis is a hard one, as i get sick of his "i'm the mayor here" hmm.... i guess he likes being seen as high and mighty, but he seems to like the community, at least
sorry, that's all i can do for him, haha

Alex is such prick to hide his pain, is what i've seen (i just have Alexa, a girl, but dialogue is pretty much the same)
it's just being "cool" while hiding his pain

Pam.... sorry to be harsh, but that's the kind of person you always walk around, and just say "hi" to

why no Elliot? which i think is a snob
i mean, even after a while, it's still as if you talk to some rich snob
but i guess there's a reason CA put him at the beach, so that you don't see him much
also, he's a novelist, and some artists can be somewhat "weird", so i guess there's an excuse, even if it's about (SPOILERS) that 1 event where he kisses you out of nowhere

Demetrius is not that good of a father, due to him praising his own child, while bashing Sebastian, who's NOT his blood related son
care about both children, Demetrius!!
other than that, he tries to make it a better place with his science researches, and even says he wishes to help the player, making the farming life easier
so he's not a bad guy

anyway, this is off track, sorry
if we look at the bad sides of the villagers, it's still not as bad as Morris' attitude towards EVERYONE, by far
perfect parents do not exist, but bad money-greedy people do
also, why having joja take over the economy of such small village as this one? that's just being an evil person

ps. there's a video i saw with CA's early development of Joja
2 video's
(see pinned comment, CA himself replied)

and nr 2


WARNING: the uploader has dark humor, nothing evil (not as evil as Morris)

can you imagine Joja was supposed to be even more evil? but who'd help them, then?

 

At the point where you can see this heart event with Elliott you are in a relationship, so that's not really out of nowhere. Or at least I see kissing my boyfriend as something very natural.

Back to topic: Joja is basically the prototype of a capitalistic company. So they are kind of both, evil and good. They provide food that people can afford, probably not the same quality as Pierre's food. But when you have little income, what do you do? On the other hand they are keeping their employees in little cubicles in gigantic halls.
Joja has quite some bad stuff going on.
Would you consider Wallmart as evil? Because I think, that is the real life example.

 

Cartoon evil is fine for me. Boo smirking Morris!

Seriously, I like that the game gives you a choice. You can go pro-Joja if you want.

They do charge more than Pierre though, don’t they?

Speaking of evil, does anyone else find it odd having Juminos harvest for you, unpaid?

 

gus has told me that pam is a cornerstone of his business and that it would be bad for him if she stopped drinking. he knows she has a problem and wants to stop drinking and yet he serves her every night, lets her run tabs and otherwise encourages her to keep drinking. if that is not problematic to you then i am not sure what to say. sure he is kind to linus in the heart event but that does not negate the active harm he is doing towards pam

there is a difference between being shy and bookish as a personality trait and openly refusing to talk to you until you give them stuff then only acting 'shy' when things don't go your way. once you are friendly with her she's rather a bit chatty and more open than most to talk about things that upset her which negates some of the 'shy' claims since there is a noted difference between being shy and having a hardline threshold between refusing to talk and being so chummy as to air out all of one's worst thoughts and feelings about others. not to spoil some heart events but if you do not side with penny you not only get patronized with a dejected slight but you also get a heavy(either two hearts or three, i do forget since i don't talk to her anymore) penalty. you don't have to yell or use expletives to be rude and i've known real people who are just like her. it is inappropriate at best and manipulatively cruel at worst and decidedly rude regardless. frankly jas is shy as heck and yet somehow she never acted offensively to me or anyone else but penny's 'shyness' occasionally borders on gaslighting and has hurt(at the very least)myself, her mom and george

sorry, i meant robin. a good portion of robin's dialogue is self-centered and she is negligent of her son to the point where i would believe she doesn't care about him at all, she jumps and fusses whenever linus is around like she's never seen him before despite him having literally lived there longer than she has, she barely pays attention to her daughter and she prioritizes her own opinions over her family(though given how much demetrius sucks i can't really say i don't understand at least a little bit of it). she isn't unfriendly to the player but she is still self-centered and occasionally a creep


assuredly though i am not mad or hostile here, i have just played year-one +8 hearts so many times and have gone over what these chars have said and done so many times and have read what others have seen(because of course i wouldn't notice everything, like leah for example who i thought was just /just/ negligent of her son and rude to linus before someone talked about the curious way the house is configured and the strange way maru and sebastian act around each other as well as brought up some behaviors i just hadn't paid mind to) enough that i am seeing the underlying bedrock as well as the surface stuff. assuredly my opinions on many of the villiagers has changed over time in interesting ways, well, except for linus. that dude's been cool with me since the first time i've played X''D only him and vincent haven't really said or done anything weird or uncomfortable that i've parsed out



eh, other than the sexist beer interlude and the wholly inappropriate kiss(that soured me on him fast) elliot is too neutral to be on my list of comparatives X''D he's like same in that regards. mostly inoffensive with the few offensives being far apart and fleeting. assuredly though that kiss can just go the flip away, like damn >/

demetrius is a bad father to maru too. he doesn't value her as a human being with her own agency, his interests lay in treating her like a doll or a prize pet and leading her down a path of his making. he is the sort to have a soft hand and a firm grip and uses it to keep her in line(because you cannot take away freedoms from someone if they dont have freedoms to take away). he's not mean to her but he is not respectful either and while she seems to have come out of it unscathed it's more than a bit telling that when you barely know her he is already making threats and gets scared when there is a risk she'd find out he was making them

because money? like, it's very clearly a comparison to walmart who will ruin a community to make almost no profit(also can i please say that coming to my house directly to tell me not to buy from joja is something pierre actually does in the game while joja will bring my silly self home if i pass out somewhere, they are soulless and money-grubbing for sure but even so they take better care of me than many of the villagers would and morris never punched anyone in the face unlike a certain villiager i know). do remember though morris is the face and point of contact for joja in pelican town he is not joja itself. with or without him joja would keep doing what it's doing until you run them out of town. assuredly though if we had that d(kn)obson char i'd firmly say 'more evil' though dang

same price as pierre if i remember correctly, not sure as only my test game ever took the membership and i never buy anything from there), the discount comes from their sales which the player is barred from receiving by virtue of....well i guess 'reasons'. they all happen in cutscenes


yeah, i do. it's slavery. they do all the work and in return they get small cramped living quarters and just barely enough food. x____x jeez, though i guess in harvest moon they only get grass for the labor so it's a better quality of slavery at least



wait... why do i love this game??? X''D

 

The only reason anybody gets punched in the game is if the player chooses to not "be reasonable."

 

it's still a canonical situation

 

I'm glad I can't take it that seriously. I think it's a great game, by a lone, indie developer. But like any piece of artwork, it evokes different emotions in different people.

 

I am completely satisfied by the cartoon version, Morris reveals his master plan of evil: 50% off coupons! Booo hisss who would do such a horrible thing! Pierre punches Morris into orbit? Yay, go hero! So long Morris and your coupons of evil.

 

I find the couching of the question to be a gross category error: the answer to the question, "Is Joja evil?" is clearly yes, in my view; the question, "Is Joja _'that'_ evil.", is completely different because "that evil" is phrased such that it causes the question to deal only in comparative terms—comparative to what, is left unstated. Joja cannot ever be less evil—let alone less-than-evil—because of Stardew residents. Its assessment under the topic exists solely via its affect upon Stardew's community and the world, including the environment. Accepting price as a key criterion for good versus evil is also a gross, grave category error, in my view: its providing for community members cheaply is neither indictment of Stardew residents nor exhonoration/vindication of Joja. Because of disregard for quality, the environment, and its workers including those in its supply chain, Joja could _give away_ its products and still be evil by exerting control over the area's politics and resources to pollutive, immiserative, and detrimental ends, in my book. The only problem with higher prices for better products is the residents' priorities so long as they're not literally incapable of paying superior products' prices, in which case it is incumbent upon them to band together to arrange more equitable access to the means of production already under some of their members' control.

 

The reason in my opinion that you are supposed to believe that JOJA corp is evil is from the opening where there is literally the skeleton of a worker covered in cobwebs in the cubical apparently having died while working on unnoticed and unmourn.

 

Joja is supposed to be painted as an antagonist, and some of the things Morris does certainly gives credence to that. Remember that the PC initially came from Joja and bailed out, too. I don't think it's overly evil so much as it's set up to dislike Joja.

 

How would destroying a town be profitable? And why would Morris want to destroy the town? I see no indication of this. In fact, Morris fixed up the town, if anything he was the only one willing to restore Pelican Town. The only other thing willing to repair Pelican Town are magical forest spirits, not the actual residences of the town.

 

So many things to say about this line of thinking. First off, again, the town's residents have nothing to do with what Joja is or isn't. Second, Joja is completely separate from Morris as a person, and he can have the best intentions in the world (he doesn't, he's greedy and relishes the destruction of "competition" from Pierre or anything he sees as a potential threat to his business and career) and still Joja can be evil in only responding to factors divorced from people's best interests. Thirdly, as I said before of profit, being evil has nothing to do, per se, with their making money or not, regardless of their being a corporation. In the plot of the anime Last Exile, an over-race "lends" technology to underlings to mine and produce in slums and brutally oppresses any hint of shortfall in production, uprisings, and rebellion; they do not "profit", yet clearly are oppressors. A pharma corp that gives away medicine only to those who support its political candidates responsible for regulation favorable to it despite those politicians' being extremely repressive and authoritarian, for example, would still clearly be evil despite medical "altruism".

 

um, you do know that joja is the one the does the work though, right? saying morris is divorced from joja in this instance is kind of dishonest. he is the contact point in this particular instance between the player and the labor being done so that might be a rather poor statement on your part

you also clearly misunderstood sventex seeing as you've confused willful destruction with greed. the only thing destroyed is the junimo's home in the community center. the rest is only a net gain since without junimo intervention nothing would have been fixed in town by the townspeople regardless. assuredly though they do act in people's best interests when they are given a reason to(in this case money) so you cannot say it is wholly divorced only that it's not done out of kindness)

as a nitpicky aside though pierre is doing the exact same thing to joja that joja is doing to him and for the exact same reason(money) and unlike morris he even exerts violence to do it

 

I didn't say Morris is divorced from Joja, I said Joja is divorced from the townspeople's best interests (you failed to comprehend my statement). Even its customers openly admit that fact: Jody says she knows its food harms her family but buys it because it's cheap. Joja is evil because it deliberately ignores quality in favor of price despite the harm its products bring its customers, to say nothing of how evil it is to profit more from worse produce even if there's no active harm from it.

My whole point is that greed is evil _regardless of_ intent! The whole problem of money being a reason is demonstrated by the above paragraph, and that is why their being a corporation becomes effectively by definition why and that they are evil.

Again, the question of whether or not Joja's evil has _nothing to do with anyone/thing but Joja_. Pierre's a slimeball and a jerk to his kid. Yet another reason to despise your indemnification of capital/business is that bettering Pelican Town's residents' lives with better food and more fulfilling and robust communal ties might accrue a lot of capital to a slimeball like Pierre simply because of where his business sits in the economy.

 

^^^^^^^^^ you just said that

how is joja to blame for jodi's poor choices? she actually does have options(and is no worse off when the choice is removed from her) so one cannot claim she was forced here. she electively chose to do this to her family, and if you the player sell subpar items to pierre he sells those too both before and after joja closes so you, by your own standard, are evil if you sell low-quality goods to pierre since you would be doing the same thing as joja and pierre is evil for doing the same thing as joja if he receives subpar items and, through extrapolation the experience of selling groceries can, in theory, be an evil practice(which is a different conversation altogether from the one in this thread)

you feel this way and yet you qualify joa's evilness pretty much entirely on things that are not it's fault. capitalism is your problem, joja is a symptom of capitalism and not the root. you are confusing the cause and effect here and doing so in a way that is non-applicable to the question. your claim seems to be that joja is evil simply by it's existing then you shore up your defense of that claim by using the machinations of some individuals(usually in ways that do not defend your stand). i think you really ought to take some time to reread the question and consider what is actually being asked here

also, she isn't adoptive. please don't be a toad. she is 100% his child regardless of genetic possibilities(and assuredly they are only possibilities not absolutes)