Tom Nook: Evil Landlord Or Kind Raccoon? Animal Crossing Gamers Debate

October 12th, 2022 - 11:25 AM EDT by Aidan Walker

7 comments | Contact Newsroom

Tom Nook sitting behind a desk, a tweet threatening to kill him.

Gamers are in the middle of a wild debate over the character Tom Nook from the Animal Crossing series.


Tom Nook is a major presence in the game, running the town shop but also acting as a kind of bank for the player. He seems to hold immense power in the Animal Crossing community, essentially controlling the means of production.


A viral tweet asking users to post what their phone’s autocorrect feature gives them based on the sentence “Tom Nook is…” quickly spiraled into threats of violence against the fictional businessraccoon. This also isn't the first time gamers have discussed trying to defeat Tom Nook, as it's been a running joke within the community, but never at the scale we're seeing today.


A number of players shared fantasies of overthrowing Nook and murdering him.


Many posters jumped into the ring to defend Tom Nook, saying his practices as a money-lender, landlord and business mogul are generous and not at all exploitative. They pointed out the fact that loans given by Nook in the game are interest-free, and it is Nook’s benevolent guidance which allows the utopia of Animal Crossing to happen.


Others wondered if defenders of Nook were in reality under his thumb, or Stockholm-syndromed into liking the wealthy raccoon.


All the Tom Nook posting also led to a healthy amount of real raccoons showing up on social media, too.




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