Beyond his appearance in Mortal Kombat 1, Peacemaker has made another videogame appearance by joining the ever-expanding world of Fortnite earlier this month. It was a collaboration with the Peacemaker TV series, currently airing, that's written and directed by DC co-boss James Gunn. However, one of the dance emotes that came with the bundle of Peacemaker-based items has been removed following the release of the series's most recent episode, which unveiled a darker truth to what was sold as an emote dance to kids.
Spoiler alert for Peacemaker season two episode six
As spotted by Eurogamer, the 'Peaceful Hips' emote was removed from the game while Epic investigated "into our partner's creative intentions in this collab emote." Refunds were issued to players who purchased the emote preemptively, assuming that the emote would not be added back into the game.
The dance, which you can see in the video below, can seem innocent enough out of context. But the context is what counts, and in context, it's clear why the emote was quickly removed.
That context is that in episode six of Peacemaker's second season, the title character discovers he's in an alternate Nazi-run universe, with the dance, specifically how he moves his arms, imitating a swastika.
It seems that James Gunn held back the true meaning of the dance from Epic, and once the truth was revealed during the episode, Epic moved quickly to remove the emote from the game. Gunn even promoted the arrival of Peacemaker in Fortnite in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that, in hindsight, carried more weight than we could've known at the time.
Who knows why the dance's meaning wasn't shared before its release in Fortnite. Busy as he is, surely Gunn would have seen updates from Epic as they were creating and animating the dance that would be in the game and available to millions of players, many of them children. It's unclear who at Warner Bros. was aware of this and if anyone at Epic knew what the dance would symbolize.
Gunn must have been aware, to some degree, that Epic would do something about the emote once episode six aired. It could be that this was all meant to be just a publicity stunt, though it'll be curious to see what further implications this stunt has on any future collaborations between Epic and Warner Bros, and if Epic adjusts how it approaches future collaborations with other partners.
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