A Response to Extra Credits "Learning from Other M."

[Thomiroth]

Well, I read the first post, and all the rest, and I've found the whole thing quite interesting. My own personal view of Samus was of a slightly more mature, intelligent and strong willed person who had a kind of 'heart of gold.'
The kind of person who would simply shake their heads at the senseless waste of having to trawl through yet another room filled with murderous space pirates and who would take the time to befriend and learn from such simple creatures as the animals found in Super Metroid.

Using Fusion as my base, since I'm sadly bereft of more modern Metroid experience (I missed Hunters, Primes 2 and 3 and Other M, though I'm sure I'll get around to them at some point.) I thought Samus came across as someone who was mature enough to be capable of violence without glorifying it, the best Bounty Hunter not because she's the most lethal, but because she's versatile enough to be able to get into and out of any situation.

This may be merely my projection onto the character, which is all well and good, but it's also possible that the OP was projecting too, given that they're drawing similarities to their own problems. I never saw Samus as a character who would, at a crucial moment, crumple to her knees and cry, because that went against my view of her being capable, but it's an interesting angle.
But likewise, I dare say that all the psychological issues that are being inferred are just as much a form of projection as my view of the character, since they're based on what are essentially 'one off' game events. Yes, in the other games, she didn't do that, since that would have gotten her killed, but what of the first game or zero mission? She came face-to-face, not with Meta Ridley, or Omega Ridley or any facsimilie, but the honest to god, murderous, screeching demon that destroyed her life, and she didn't even flinch, so I don't buy that shellshock is really one of her 'weaknesses', sorry.

We each choose our heroes, by the seeming of it, and if it comes down to it, my Hero is Cohen, thus I will interpret my apparent 'blank slates' as something similar, however I tend to be pretty good at judging people from very little input, so perhaps there's a bit more Cohen to Samus than you might think.

 

[funguy2121]

I guess it is somewhat amusing how you continue to say that you're throwing down hard science while I'm using anecdotes and fantasy (you're quoted below doing so), while continuing yourself to say things like "well-known concept." Let's take a look.

Prime 1, first appearance: orbital platform. Prime 3, first appearance: surface of Norion at the beginning of the game. Both cases: purple, no indication that he's metallic or has metallic components, and if you've seen anything here that I haven't, the meaning behind it is, again, defined exclusively by fans which means that it has all the weight of fan fiction.

Meta-Ridley is a well-known concept in the Metroid universe, and appears in multiple games including a cameo in Super-Smash Brothers.

...and? How does this support your idea that Ridley is a cyborg, especially in Super Metroid, which you have said you don't remember playing because when you did it was...in the cretaceous period, I believe?

Then why was establishing that Meta-Ridley was any different from Ridley important at all? Your argument is failing. You said that the Meta's weren't as scary because they were just robots or clones and more easily desposed of, but that THIS Ridley was the real deal who killed Samus' parents and could not die.

There is a HUGE difference between "We rebuilt him as a half-robot dude", and "We cloned him, brought him back to life as good as ever, maybe better!" In the first, every encounter is a reminder that he's the one who should be afraid in the situation. You have taken something from him each time, something he can never get back, and soon there won't be enough to rebuild. In the second, your actions are nothing but a short inconvenience which can be easily rectified with a few days recuperation. Really, it's a very basic difference, it's not as hard to understand as you are making it.

Of course. Because cyborg with machine gun implants = wuss and clone = supervillain. My bad.

It seems like you aren't even sure what happened in the games, and you admit to not having played all of them or having played many of them within the last decade. Samus' colony was wiped out, her parents murdered. I don't believe they blew up the planet ala Alderaan. One more time, you may feel free to watch the video again, as they state in no uncertain terms what we can be unflinchingly sure of regarding Samus based on her earlier games. Or you can go on pretending you didn't notice it. I'll provide the time marker if you like.

I admitted to never playing Echoes or Hunters. That is not "many of the within the last decade", as I don't even consider them relevant to the discussion.

-and yet you mentioned Super Metroid -

I've never bothered with Hunters, though I have read the basic plot points and watched LPs for Echoes. No, they didn't blow up the planet ala Alderaan. They murdered everyone they could find on it.

Says who? The mango you dismissed earlier?

Yes, I realize that the video says that we know in no uncertain terms who Samus is, the whole point of this is that I disagree with the bloody video . Rule one: Never cite evidence that your opponent is basing his entire point around disagreeing with as a reason for him to agree with you.

Thank you!

I would say you've assumed, assumed quite a bit about the game, the franchise, the players, and about those who disagree with you. No one has accused Samus of being dispassionate or her encounters being easy. And thanks for stating the obvious: we are aware that, as the first game with true narration, Other M is the first to look at Samus' thinking.

Here's the difference between my assumptions and your's: I can back mine up with scientific proof and reasoned logic. I've yet to see either from you. Please, produce something that actually contradicts my arguments, c'est vous plait. Salutatio.

See? You even made a point about your intellectual superiority by speaking to me in another language (since knowledge=intelligence).

Yes, otherwise it's just a bullshit excuse to stick to your bullshit story.

I haven't heard anyone make these claims, so I must live in a vacuum, but I'll bite. Since everyone is saying that the narration was used in the wrong parts and didn't make since, it's clear that you are really, really reaching. The video also pointed out that translation was an issue in narration.

I see a problem here. Since you don't agree with the video, we must throw that out as evidence and assume that all of the poorly used big words in the game were the result of a pseudointellectual author attempting to impress his parents.

Also, I looked up unreliable narrative. Unreliable narrative is used in 1 of 3 ways: in a way that's immediately clear and frames the story, in an intentionally decietful way to mislead the audience until the very end of the story (twist ending, which Other M does not have), and in a way that at the end makes the audience question two or more possible outcomes (which, again, Other M doesn't have). THE GAME would have to make it clear that unreliable narrator is being used, just as Inception did.

I'm an author.

-well, you're a writer. You have to publish to be an author. Incidentally, so am I -

Don't try to school me on Unreliable Narrator. It's one of my favorite tricks, and there are a thousand and one ways to use it. Those are the three very, VERY basic one's, but there are oh-so-many more.

If you have such a taste for nuance, then why did you next say...

Inception didn't use Unreliable narrator, because it wasn't a narrative account. It was a movie told in the Third Person.

-should I point out here that it wasn't "told" at all, and that the ending was indeed intended to be read at least two different ways? Oh, well.

Unreliable Narrator requires a first person account, thus disqualifying Inception entirely. As I've said before, the game SHOULD be making you question two or more possible outcomes, but you are too hung up on how it contradicts what you thought you knew to notice it.

Of course, since literary devices are not meant to have any purpose which will be revealed until months later by nerds on the internet who nitpick at banal minutia (calm down, tiger, I'm mocking myself as well).

That's right, nit-pick the only things you can argue. I believe Samus' relationship with the Federation (not the military) has been described as "contract." She's a bounty hunter, not a soldier. This is not up for dispute.

That's right, quote portions of my argument out of context to look smart. Don't worry, we'll get to the rest of what you said in a minute.

Mmm-hmm. Moving on...

How is Fusion a different ball-park? Other M takes place just before...oh, I see. Relevance? Stay on subject. In Fusion, which has a narrative, PTSD isn't discussed (because the only PTSD in the Metroid-verse is fan-fiction such as your own) and neither is freaking out and freezing up at the sight of Ridley, nor is your little Meta-Ridley theory.

You never actually played Fusion, did you? Fusion is completely different because a VIRUS ATE RIDLEY. As in, he doesn't exist anymore. What she sees is little more than crude puppetry after she straight up murders him, for good. PTSD isn't an issue in Fusion because after Other: M, Samus learns to cope with a reality where Ridley is immortal, and re-focuses to find a way to fix that. It's very, very basic psychology, and I'm beginning to suspect that your knowledge of PTSD comes entirely from TV shows and movies.

No, actually, it comes from escapist forums and wikipedia entries. Again, I don't think you understand what I'm arguing or really even what you're arguing here. NO MENTION OF PTSD OR ANY OF YOUR THEORIES HAVE BEEN MADE BY ANY GAME IN THE FRANCHISE, REGARDLESS OF THE CHRONOLOGY. Not Fusion, not the Primes, not 8-bit and 16-bit games. Your argument has no weight than, say, internet fan-fiction.

No, you assume she's a wreck. Which is it?

Did I ever say I wasn't a wreck? I don't recall mentioning that.

You didn't, I didn't, but it's good of you to admit it now.

You can be a wreck emotionally and still function by passively re-purposing those emotions.

No, you can't.

It's really quite common, but I shouldn't have assumed you would know that, since you haven't shown any other signs of possessing any sort of psychological understanding.

So Metroid is intended only for psych students? I wasn't aware that "wreck" was in the DSM-IV (sorry, I don't recall the name of the European counterpart). If, however, you refer to a dictionary I think you'll find it speaks to something which is "totalled" and "no longer functional."

If Metroid has a literary forebearer, it would be the early Alien movies, so we could say Scott and Cameron. Most definitely not Thomas Harris. I don't know where you get this notion that Ridley is Hannibal Lector, but no character in Metroid is invincible.

I don't know what this literary forebearer business is about, but let's just skip right to that last sentence: Cloning makes you immortal. Not Invincible, immortal, as in "I can still kill it, but it will be back." Again, this is not that hard to grasp.

Are you still claiming that all of your claims are based upon hard science? Immortal science, even.

Then read above. There is no evidence for any of what you assume is authorial intent.

You have quoted no authorial intent. You have not produced evidence from either of the creators of Metroid, one of whom wrote the bloody game, saying that anything I have said or Other: M did contradicts authorial intent.

Because they've never heard of you, and because the video has already done that job.

Your professed inability to recall what you just said, and my addressing of it, would be considered similar to a paradox. It's cool, I addressed the "pacifism" and "genocide" topics in text quoted in this very post. Maybe that will explain this to you. Further, I was overjoyed when I got the good news this morning that Mr. bin Ladin will no longer be racking up high dialysis bills, and I am a pacifist.

You can be happy about the death of a monster, and be a pacifist. When you killed the monster with your own hands? You are no longer a pacifist. When you train someone to kill the monster for you? You are no longer a pacifist. I haven't seen anywhere where you have adequately addressed this point.

Right here! Killing a monster isn't murder! I know plenty of vegan spider-smashers who will back me up on this! Is that adequate enough for you?

Seriously, kid, make up your mind. Do the games tell us lots of things that we can define as absolutes, or do they tell us nothing? Getting rid of the Pirates is all that Samus is about? How do we know this if the series is "based entirely on conjecture," as you claimed? You need a few more years of law school yet.

I'm still hoping someone will source the claim that Nintendo is officially unpleased with Other M and that it's not just Reggie saying he's not happy with the sales.

The games tell us a lot of things about Samus's backstory, but very little about Samus herself. The distinction MUST be made between these two things, "kid".

If only you'd made that distinction 6 days ago! Now, there is a valid point! Still wrong, but valid!

Edit: I said "mango" instead of manga!

 

[Twilight_guy]

You know what you should do? E-mail the guys at extra credits and have a debate with them. I'd be fun. We didn't make the damn video so we don't have the expertise to properly respond to this.

 

[Tulks]

We call Other: M exploitative, but we forget how we first found out Samus was a woman in Metroid: She did a little strip-tease for us at the end of the game by taking off her armor and showing us her leotard.

If you were fast enough it became a bikini.

That is all.

 

[DocBalance]

...and? How does this support your idea that Ridley is a cyborg, especially in Super Metroid, which you have said you don't remember playing because when you did it was...in the cretaceous period, I believe?

Here's an example of what you are best at: Quoting a portion of a point and pretending that it's the whole thing. Are you a politician? You should really go into it, you seem like the kind of guy who would thrive there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborgs_in_fiction

Scroll down to Video Games, it specifically cites Prime and Prime 3. For at least those two, and to my knowledge Super Metroid as well, Ridley has been a cyborg. He has never returned without damage. You are purposely trying not to understand this at this point, it's that simple.

Of course. Because cyborg with machine gun implants = wuss and clone = supervillain. My bad.

No, "Guy with limbs that I blew off so he had to have them rebuilt" is far less intimidating than "Guy who regenerated easily from my freakin' laser cannon." Again, this is a tediously simple concept to grasp. Robot means that eventually he'll just be a machine, cloning means that there is no way to actually kill him.

See? You even made a point about your intellectual superiority by speaking to me in another language (since knowledge=intelligence).

I'll be honest, I'm really not sure what this is. It doesn't resemble anything that could be vaguely related to a point, so let's move on.

I see a problem here. Since you don't agree with the video, we must throw that out as evidence and assume that all of the poorly used big words in the game were the result of a pseudointellectual author attempting to impress his parents.

Again, I'm not sure where you were going with this. It doesn't really make sense. You quoted yourself, and then argued against yourself. Be straight with me here: Do you have schizophrenia? I can help you with that.

should I point out here that it wasn't "told" at all, and that the ending was indeed intended to be read at least two different ways? Oh, well.

No, you really shouldn't, as it just drives home your ignorance towards literary devices. Multiple endings does NOT mean Unreliable narrator. The famous Frank R. Stockton tale "The Lady Or The Tiger", for instance, has an implied multiple ending, but does not exercise Unreliable Narrator. As long as you can trust what the narrator is telling you to be true(I.E as long as you can trust that what you see on the screen is what is happening in the movie in some form or another) then you do not have Unreliable Narrator.

Of course, since literary devices are not meant to have any purpose which will be revealed until months later by nerds on the internet who nitpick at banal minutia (calm down, tiger, I'm mocking myself as well).

No, rather, you choose to ignore literary devices upon there inception(cwutididthar) because you don't care for their implications.

No, actually, it comes from escapist forums and wikipedia entries. Again, I don't think you understand what I'm arguing or really even what you're arguing here. NO MENTION OF PTSD OR ANY OF YOUR THEORIES HAVE BEEN MADE BY ANY GAME IN THE FRANCHISE, REGARDLESS OF THE CHRONOLOGY. Not Fusion, not the Primes, not 8-bit and 16-bit games. Your argument has no weight than, say, internet fan-fiction.

Two highly reputable sources to be drawing knowledge of psychological disorders, to be certain. Again, if we are dealing with Unreliable Narrator, PTSD won't be mentioned. To go back to your Inception analogy, none of the various psychological disorders that DiCaprio suffers are ever called by name, even though there is a psychological disorder where you cannot be sure that you are in reality and not a dream(I would know, considering I have it.) But, the disorder exists, just the same.

You can be a wreck emotionally and still function by passively re-purposing those emotions.

No, you can't.

Yes, you can. I'm living proof. In fact, the majority of people you will meet in your lifetime are emotionally scarred and broken.

So Metroid is intended only for psych students? I wasn't aware that "wreck" was in the DSM-IV (sorry, I don't recall the name of the European counterpart). If, however, you refer to a dictionary I think you'll find it speaks to something which is "totalled" and "no longer functional."

That is a proper definition, since she emotionally is no longer functional.

Are you still claiming that all of your claims are based upon hard science? Immortal science, even.

That is what cloning is, yes. If we could actually make it work in the real world, that would be correct. However, if we are throwing out concepts from Metroid because they don't work in the real world, I think we're going to have a few problems justifying the existence of...well, anything from the games.

Because they've never heard of you, and because the video has already done that job.

As much as I respect the Extra Credits crew, they're wrong, and they didn't make Metroid. There is no evidence in the video that anything I have said goes against authorial intent. Get me the words of the authors, and we'll talk.

Right here! Killing a monster isn't murder! I know plenty of vegan spider-smashers who will back me up on this! Is that adequate enough for you?

Yes it is. Murder is murder, no matter the context. It's just how justifiable the murder is that changes things.

If only you'd made that distinction 6 days ago! Now, there is a valid point! Still wrong, but valid!

I did. I'm not surprised you missed it though, you may have been too busy trying to cut sound-bites out for future twisting. It's okay, though, really, all closet-politicians do it, nothing to be guilty about.

 

[RatRace123]

I think a lot of the hate for other M comes from how badly the ideas in it were implemented.
It's fine to give Samus characterization, it's even fine to show her as being vulnerable; but the horrible voice acting, meh script, and the just submissive way Samus behaves throughout the whole game just didn't click right.

 

[funguy2121]

We call Other: M exploitative, but we forget how we first found out Samus was a woman in Metroid: She did a little strip-tease for us at the end of the game by taking off her armor and showing us her leotard.

If you were fast enough it became a bikini.

That is all.

...and feminists used to celebrate the bikini.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Fair warning folks, this is gonna get long.

I've been thinking about all this Other:M Business for awhile now, and today's Extra Credits episode really re-kindled a lot of those thoughts, mainly the ideas of characterization. I've heard this from just about every corner of the Internet, how everything Other: M did was contrary to what we know about Samus. I contest this: It's contrary to everything we THOUGHT we knew about Samus.

My first counterpoint is that we had something to work with when it came to characterizing Samus. When something attempts to approach the issue directly rather than giving us hints and notions that is radically different from what we think we know the natural response is revulsion. This isn't the Samus we know, even if we never really knew her. It is some shambling monotonic impostor. That this is the actual Samus is irrelevant; that it is radically different from the Samus we know is the important bit.

I'm approach this from a different angle then most, though. I don't think Samus was a complete Tabula Rasa, but rather I think we were given hints and surface clues to who Samus is, and we supplied our own assumptions as to her motives and emotions. I'm going to breakdown a few key elements of discontent from the game, the first being Samus's reaction to Ridley.

Many have complained about how Samus freaks out and becomes helpless in the presence of Ridley at his return. I think this deserves some context though: Ridley murdered her entire planet. Yes, I realize she's killed him a dozen times by now, and I think that's the point: She's killed him in the original game, and he had to come back as a robot for most of his tenure through the other games. But now? Here he is, fully-formed and back to normal, as if nothing happened. She accomplished nothing. The monster that she's killed a thousand and one times is not the slightest bit phased by her attempts, no matter what she does. To me, that would be-speak a certain inevitability: Your enemy always returns, no matter how many times you kill him. Someday, he will kill you. This is getting later in the series, right after Samus's encounters with Dark Samus, whom she narrowly defeats, and further back Mother Brain, whom she only defeated because of help from something she was supposed to be trying to kill. Samus lives in a world where everything that's against her is inherently stronger than she is, but she perseveres in the knowledge that she's always toppled her greatest foe, that she always leaves him with scars to pay for everything he did. But when Ridley appears in Other: M, the game has changed. He is as good as new, maybe better, and that's terrifying to her.

While your general argument here has merit consider her history. Samus has unflinchingly faced unimaginable horrors. She has helped eradicate species, she has waged a brutal war against space pirates and she has long faced impossible odds without hesitation or complaint. That such a life might take a psychological toll is indeed plausible. The problem is that this toll is represented in a way that is utterly alien to how she normally acts. It is her displayed response, not the cause that is out of place. She might respond to such trauma by becoming an introverted sociopath in the long term (which isn't a stretch) but in the moment she had three responses. She could fight, she could flee or she could give up. The first is what she does best and the second is something she's been known to do more than once. But never once has she just given up. When the chips are down and she's backed into a corner, Samus has always demonstrated that she will fight to the bitter end. More than once she's face foes she had no business besting and she willingly faced them knowing the long odds. Samus is a character that never knows when to quit and always has a card to play. That she would cash out under any circumstance is so far removed from this pattern of behavior that, rather than demonstrating a flaw in her character it serves only to alienate us from the character. The Samus I know might freeze for a moment. She might head for the hills to reassess the situation. But she would never just lay down and accept death.

I don't think it would be terribly remiss to say that Samus has some form of PTSD, considering everything that happened to her. As someone who used to suffer from several psychological disorders including Multiple Personality Disorder, I can personally attest that the only thing more terrifying than the condition itself is the thought of relapsing into it. Whenever I get into a particularly stressful situation and I hear anything that even remotely sounds like a voice that shouldn't be there, I panic. I can barely breathe, and I can't see straight, because the prospect of going back to that hell-hole I used to call my psyche is that scary to me, and I only had a few years of sleep deprivation to blame for it. In Samus's case, she has genocide and years of fighting to be afraid about, and before her is living proof that everything she has done is a waste of time. If for even a second she believed that that made her helpless, that would be enough to trigger the fear of relapse, which in turn would only spike the chance of relapse higher. Thus from a natural, human perspective, everything we see in her encounter with Ridley is perfectly understandable.

As I said, that such a scenario would draw a notable response is understandable. That it would draw a response so foreign to everything we have ever known about her is the problem. That her response is reasonable is less relevant than the fact that her response is alien to what we know about her. It is a sudden slap that says this isn't the Samus I know but someone entirely different.

But maybe it is how this encounter ends that rubs people the wrong way, with the much hated character Adam coming out to save her, implying that the "little girl" needs a "big, strong man" to save her. Specifically, everyone hates that it's THAT big, strong man who saves her, because he's pretty much a douche. To that, I would agree whole-heartedly, Adam is an asshole. Then why is Samus trusting him and respecting him? Well, again, let's look at her psychological profile and history. Ridley kills her family when she is fairly young, and she's raised by a race that isn't human. Her main male figure for most of her life is Adam. See, I think people mis-understand the undertones of their relationship. I don't think it's meant to be a purely romantic relationship. Rather, Adam struck me as her father figure, or at the very least an older brother. Does she possibly have some romantic feelings for him? Maybe, that's not all-together uncommon in surrogate father-brother relationships of this nature, especially for someone who is as psychologically damaged as Samus. I also don't think Adam reciprocates this relationship with anything more than begrudging acknowledgement. That's not to say it's a good relationship, but I think that Team Ninja's background has led some people to skew the relationship dynamic: We envision an abusive boyfriend when we see Adam, but he's real more an abusive/absentee father.

The problem with Adam, in general, is that we are simply forced to accept the connection between the two with absolutely no information. Again, Samus is acting in a way that is contrary to what we have seen her do in multiple games in a franchise that is more than 20 years old because of some jackass. We have no basis for understanding why she would act this way thus reinforcing the notion that this character simply is not Samus.

There also seems to be a consensus that everyone assumes that this relationship is supposed to be laudable or good because Samus says so. Why? I think Other: M is playing the unreliable narrator card on the sly, and no one caught them. We take everything that comes from Samus as the opinion of the creators, but that's simply not the case in my opinion. Rather, I think that due to Samus's stunted development and fractured childhood, she is drawn to abusive relationships and danger. I think, in the back of her mind, she thinks she deserves all of it. It's classic survivor's guilt. To me, that would explain why she pursues the Space Pirates so vehemently. It's more than revenge to her, it's a no-lose situation. If she kills them all, her people rest in peace. If she dies, then she gets the fate she always feels she really deserved. There's an inherent clash there, though: She's trained to kill, and the whole point of her surviving was to do just that. Yet she wants to die. Instinct vs. Desire, a conflict that is very confusing to the human body because it's incredibly rare. I would call that another factor in her reaction to Ridley, but deeper still it explains her relationship with Adam. She knows, deep down, that he's abusive and dismissive of her, but she secretly feels like she deserves it, so he's the perfect man to her.

This is an interesting theory with almost no information to back it up. An unfounded yet fascinating supposition means virtually nothing in the argument.

This explains the final and most often cited example of Other: M's failure, the Varia Suit encounter. It's been said that there is no reason Samus would risk her life to obey a stupid order from someone who isn't even really her direct superior anymore, and if it were isolated to just that, they'd be correct. But when you combine the surrogate father figure effect with that survivor's guilt, you get a perfect storm where keeping the suit off is the ONLY possible outcome. It's a sequence where she will die in the line of duty, following direct orders, so it is complete justifiable and almost certainly fatal. It also involves the one person she would take said orders from, so there is no point in refusing. Now, if Samus had turned on the suit? That would have been incredibly out of character.

Samus has long demonstrated that she would do what it takes to get the job done. I understand that they needed to justify her "losing" her powers all over again in some way but they simply chose the worst way to accomplish this.

In the end, Other: M is a passable game that gives us valuable information about Samus. We don't like that information, but it's truth. It's a hell of a lot more plausible than the opposing characterization I've heard from Other: M's detractors, and far more human. I think the biggest lesson we can learn from Other: M is that sometimes, our characters aren't as unshakable or heroic as we'd like to think, and that's a reality we're going to have to live with if this medium is ever going to advance. Sometimes the good guys really are just flawed people with good reasons and strong resolve, but most of the time every good guy is one breakdown from becoming a victim. It's the acknowledgement of that fact that prepares us to deal with it and prevent that breakdown from coming, rather than ignore it and pretend we're bullet-proof. Just my two cents, though, and I welcome any further thoughts/debate.

In a nutshell, the problem with Other M is one of familiarity. We have seen Samus act in a certain way in the face of unimaginable danger. The way she acts in Other M often diverges wildly from what we have seen her do time and again. This, in itself, is not the problem; familiarity can be overcome. The problem is we are given none of the information or explanation necessary to accept the sudden change in her character. She suddenly acts subservient to a man and risks her own life and the fate of the mission to please him but we don't know why she is willing to do that. She simply collapses in a heap in the face of her most hated enemy who she has killed time and again and never get an explanation.

One can radically change a character especially when we don't really know much about them beyond what we've seen them do. But having watched Samus do all of these things across countless games we have all formed an idea of who she is. That this idea may be off the mark is all well and good. But when you show us this other character you must adequately explain the change. A static, flat character is a sign of bad writing (most of the time). An arbitrary change of fundamental character traits without due explanation and justification is at least as bad.

 

[funguy2121]

I guess the gloves are off.

...and? How does this support your idea that Ridley is a cyborg, especially in Super Metroid, which you have said you don't remember playing because when you did it was...in the cretaceous period, I believe?

Here's an example of what you are best at: Quoting a portion of a point and pretending that it's the whole thing.

Well, since you didn't address every question I asked or point I raised, I thought it impertinent to go on with them. No make believe has been involved, at least on my part.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborgs_in_fiction

Scroll down to Video Games, it specifically cites Prime and Prime 3. For at least those two, and to my knowledge Super Metroid as well, Ridley has been a cyborg. He has never returned without damage. You are purposely trying not to understand this at this point, it's that simple.

Didn't you see where I poked fun at wikipedia? A few weeks back I changed a wikipedia page to make this very point. I do believe that Throbbing Gristle are still from Austria and not Britain, but I haven't checked to see if this reality-altering is still in effect due to the changes I made to the inscrutible wikipedia.

Of course. Because cyborg with machine gun implants = wuss and clone = supervillain. My bad.

No, "Guy with limbs that I blew off so he had to have them rebuilt" is far less intimidating than "Guy who regenerated easily from my freakin' laser cannon." Again, this is a tediously simple concept to grasp. Robot means that eventually he'll just be a machine, cloning means that there is no way to actually kill him.

Do I really have to spell it out for you, as if others have not already? DNA is required to clone, therefore actual immortality is impossible.

See? You even made a point about your intellectual superiority by speaking to me in another language (since knowledge=intelligence).

I'll be honest, I'm really not sure what this is. It doesn't resemble anything that could be vaguely related to a point, so let's move on.

Perhaps it's vaguely related to your own snide comment that you conveniently snipped from this post.

I see a problem here. Since you don't agree with the video, we must throw that out as evidence and assume that all of the poorly used big words in the game were the result of a pseudointellectual author attempting to impress his parents.

Again, I'm not sure where you were going with this. It doesn't really make sense. You quoted yourself, and then argued against yourself. Be straight with me here: Do you have schizophrenia? I can help you with that.

But of course, that's exactly what happened. Please, someone, help me with this debilitating disorder.

should I point out here that it wasn't "told" at all, and that the ending was indeed intended to be read at least two different ways? Oh, well.

No, you really shouldn't, as it just drives home your ignorance towards literary devices. Multiple endings does NOT mean Unreliable narrator. The famous Frank R. Stockton tale "The Lady Or The Tiger", for instance, has an implied multiple ending, but does not exercise Unreliable Narrator. As long as you can trust what the narrator is telling you to be true(I.E as long as you can trust that what you see on the screen is what is happening in the movie in some form or another) then you do not have Unreliable Narrator.

Been a while since you saw Inception? If the top keeps spinning, that negates quite a bit of what was seen (or at least how it should be interpreted) earlier in the film. But thanks for the education anywho.

Of course, since literary devices are not meant to have any purpose which will be revealed until months later by nerds on the internet who nitpick at banal minutia (calm down, tiger, I'm mocking myself as well).

No, rather, you choose to ignore literary devices upon there inception(cwutididthar) because you don't care for their implications.

Yup. You misused a word.

No, actually, it comes from escapist forums and wikipedia entries. Again, I don't think you understand what I'm arguing or really even what you're arguing here. NO MENTION OF PTSD OR ANY OF YOUR THEORIES HAVE BEEN MADE BY ANY GAME IN THE FRANCHISE, REGARDLESS OF THE CHRONOLOGY. Not Fusion, not the Primes, not 8-bit and 16-bit games. Your argument has no weight than, say, internet fan-fiction.

Two highly reputable sources to be drawing knowledge of psychological disorders, to be certain. Again, if we are dealing with Unreliable Narrator, PTSD won't be mentioned. To go back to your Inception analogy, none of the various psychological disorders that DiCaprio suffers are ever called by name, even though there is a psychological disorder where you cannot be sure that you are in reality and not a dream(I would know, considering I have it.) But, the disorder exists, just the same.

I was going to say that I wasn't referring to disorders when I mentioned Inception,but I think we may have figured out the problem anyway.

You can be a wreck emotionally and still function by passively re-purposing those emotions.

No, you can't.

Yes, you can. I'm living proof. In fact, the majority of people you will meet in your lifetime are emotionally scarred and broken.

You make frantic leaps from the subtle to the superlative. Let's see where you take this "wreck" next...

So Metroid is intended only for psych students? I wasn't aware that "wreck" was in the DSM-IV (sorry, I don't recall the name of the European counterpart). If, however, you refer to a dictionary I think you'll find it speaks to something which is "totalled" and "no longer functional."

That is a proper definition, since she emotionally is no longer functional.

Of course. I distinctly remember that from the endings of Metroid 2 and Prime 3.

Because they've never heard of you, and because the video has already done that job.

As much as I respect the Extra Credits crew, they're wrong, and they didn't make Metroid. There is no evidence in the video that anything I have said goes against authorial intent. Get me the words of the authors, and we'll talk.

I guess epistemology is just not your bag, baby.

Right here! Killing a monster isn't murder! I know plenty of vegan spider-smashers who will back me up on this! Is that adequate enough for you?

Yes it is. Murder is murder, no matter the context. It's just how justifiable the murder is that changes things.

I'm sure the roaches who dwell in your home thank you.

If only you'd made that distinction 6 days ago! Now, there is a valid point! Still wrong, but valid!

I did. I'm not surprised you missed it though, you may have been too busy trying to cut sound-bites out for future twisting. It's okay, though, really, all closet-politicians do it, nothing to be guilty about.

Well, I suppose being called a closeted public official (nice logic) is better than being called Hitler because I don't accept your arbitrary projections on the Metroid franchise.

 

[Tulks]

We call Other: M exploitative, but we forget how we first found out Samus was a woman in Metroid: She did a little strip-tease for us at the end of the game by taking off her armor and showing us her leotard.

If you were fast enough it became a bikini.

That is all.

...and feminists used to celebrate the bikini.

I still do.

Maybe I should take up feminism. Sounds like fun.

 

[funguy2121]

We call Other: M exploitative, but we forget how we first found out Samus was a woman in Metroid: She did a little strip-tease for us at the end of the game by taking off her armor and showing us her leotard.

If you were fast enough it became a bikini.

That is all.

...and feminists used to celebrate the bikini.

I still do.

Maybe I should take up feminism. Sounds like fun.

It is! Viva le revolucion!

 

[DocBalance]

Random insults and phrases without actual points, meaning, or logic, while ignoring requests for evidence and continuing to pull my ideas from the very ether

That pretty much sums up everything you just said, and I don't really see this as a rational debate anymore. Until you provide the evidence requested, we're done here.

My first counterpoint is that we had something to work with when it came to characterizing Samus. When something attempts to approach the issue directly rather than giving us hints and notions that is radically different from what we think we know the natural response is revulsion. This isn't the Samus we know, even if we never really knew her. It is some shambling monotonic impostor. That this is the actual Samus is irrelevant; that it is radically different from the Samus we know is the important bit.

The delivery, we can agree, was terrible. I'm not advocating that the story of Other: M was well delivered, or even that good, as I state near the end of my post. Rather, I'm advocated that the ideas have merit, and should be explored further. The general consensus has been to run the other way and just burn the whole thing to the ground whilst forgetting it ever happened.

While your general argument here has merit consider her history. Samus has unflinchingly faced unimaginable horrors. She has helped eradicate species, she has waged a brutal war against space pirates and she has long faced impossible odds without hesitation or complaint. That such a life might take a psychological toll is indeed plausible. The problem is that this toll is represented in a way that is utterly alien to how she normally acts. It is her displayed response, not the cause that is out of place. She might respond to such trauma by becoming an introverted sociopath in the long term (which isn't a stretch) but in the moment she had three responses. She could fight, she could flee or she could give up. The first is what she does best and the second is something she's been known to do more than once. But never once has she just given up. When the chips are down and she's backed into a corner, Samus has always demonstrated that she will fight to the bitter end. More than once she's face foes she had no business besting and she willingly faced them knowing the long odds. Samus is a character that never knows when to quit and always has a card to play. That she would cash out under any circumstance is so far removed from this pattern of behavior that, rather than demonstrating a flaw in her character it serves only to alienate us from the character. The Samus I know might freeze for a moment. She might head for the hills to reassess the situation. But she would never just lay down and accept death.

A correct assessment, she hasn't ever done that. However, this time was different. It's the sheer implications of the encounter, not necessarily the encounter itself, that causes her to give up.

As I said, that such a scenario would draw a notable response is understandable. That it would draw a response so foreign to everything we have ever known about her is the problem. That her response is reasonable is less relevant than the fact that her response is alien to what we know about her. It is a sudden slap that says this isn't the Samus I know but someone entirely different.

Extreme situations such as the one found in Other: M often generate "alien" responses. Again, I would use myself as an example. My line of work is one that requires me to be very collected, and for that reason many people would have described me as a calm, cool, perhaps even cold individual. Yet if you had but a few short years ago created a situation that somehow discredited a memory of mine, it would have upset the delicate balance my psyche was hanging in during my desperate attempts to convince myself that I didn't need help and that my memory lapses were completely normal.

The problem with Adam, in general, is that we are simply forced to accept the connection between the two with absolutely no information. Again, Samus is acting in a way that is contrary to what we have seen her do in multiple games in a franchise that is more than 20 years old because of some jackass. We have no basis for understanding why she would act this way thus reinforcing the notion that this character simply is not Samus.

Technically true, but when have we seen Samus operate under any direct authority in any other game? She has worked for the military, but is given relative autonomy. If her relationship with Adam is as I theorize and believe the games would prove, it would be a very different situation indeed.

This is an interesting theory with almost no information to back it up. An unfounded yet fascinating supposition means virtually nothing in the argument.

I'd cite the situation itself as support for the theory, as well as the fact that Samus has never had a partner nor worked with anyone else.

Samus has long demonstrated that she would do what it takes to get the job done. I understand that they needed to justify her "losing" her powers all over again in some way but they simply chose the worst way to accomplish this.

But what if they wanted you to think that? What if they wanted this to be a horrifying, irredeemable action? Again, there is no evidence that this relationship is actually good except Samus's say-so.

In a nutshell, the problem with Other M is one of familiarity. We have seen Samus act in a certain way in the face of unimaginable danger. The way she acts in Other M often diverges wildly from what we have seen her do time and again. This, in itself, is not the problem; familiarity can be overcome. The problem is we are given none of the information or explanation necessary to accept the sudden change in her character. She suddenly acts subservient to a man and risks her own life and the fate of the mission to please him but we don't know why she is willing to do that. She simply collapses in a heap in the face of her most hated enemy who she has killed time and again and never get an explanation.

One can radically change a character especially when we don't really know much about them beyond what we've seen them do. But having watched Samus do all of these things across countless games we have all formed an idea of who she is. That this idea may be off the mark is all well and good. But when you show us this other character you must adequately explain the change. A static, flat character is a sign of bad writing (most of the time). An arbitrary change of fundamental character traits without due explanation and justification is at least as bad.

I would agree 100% that the problem is one of familiarity, and that Team Ninja dropped the ball with the delivery of the story. I'm just saying that we don't need to turn out everything Other: M did, or declare it non-canon, or find every store that still stocks it, burn them down, and salt the Earth. There are things that can be learned from it, whether it was perfect or not.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

The customer is NOT always right. Most of the time the customer is a clueless moron, and if this upsets you, you are that moron. http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20090313

Soooo, lemme get this straight...

According to this logic, the customer is a clueless moron and, unless I missed something in the OP about you being a developer or a designer, then that means YOU are a customer as well. Also, it seems kind of selective that if someone is upset by what you say, then they are the moron, not you. If we are to go by this logic, of course.

Now, if we go by another poster's logic and say the customer is always right, then we are all opinionated and what matters is that our own opinion is correct to us while everyone else's view is also correct, but with a differing view of the same thing. Then we could, theoretically, go on about our lives, maybe taking in a differing view like it was our own and realize that, perhaps, we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. And maybe, just maybe, we can stop being xenophobic bastards and accept differing views as being just that: different. And should we not agree with that difference, then so be it.

Personally, I like the latter of the statements.

 

[DocBalance]

The customer is NOT always right. Most of the time the customer is a clueless moron, and if this upsets you, you are that moron. http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20090313

Soooo, lemme get this straight...

According to this logic, the customer is a clueless moron and, unless I missed something in the OP about you being a developer or a designer, then that means YOU are a customer as well. Also, it seems kind of selective that if someone is upset by what you say, then they are the moron, not you. If we are to go by this logic, of course.

Now, if we go by another poster's logic and say the customer is always right, then we are all opinionated and what matters is that our own opinion is correct to us while everyone else's view is also correct, but with a differing view of the same thing. Then we could, theoretically, go own about our lives, maybe taking in a differing view like it was our own and realize that, perhaps, we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. And maybe, just maybe, we can stop being xenophobic bastards and accept differing views as being just that: different. And should we not agree with that difference, then so be it.

Personally, I like the latter of the statements.

Mate, it's a joke. Like, from a comic. Not meant to be taken seriously, just like the original post that I was quoting when I posted that comic was not meant to be taken seriously.

 

[PureIrony]

Okay, one thing about the abusive father thing: that's complete bullshit. How can I say this? Because I had abusive father. Yup, I saw it with my own eyes, I felt it with my own body, and it is NOT something Other M does, not in the least.

My father is a complete BASTARD of a man. He beat the hell out of me, my brothers, AND MY OWN FUCKING MOTHER who was far smaller than him. The only reason I didn't fight back because it was physically impossible. I know what it's like to have try and find approval from a man who is a conniving, insecure hypocrite who has to abuse other people emotionally and physically in order to make himself feel big and puts impossible standards on his children, standards he couldn't live up to when he was my age. When I turned sixteen and didn't have to legally see him anymore I did so without turning back and I haven't seen him since. It sucks that I the short straw of who I had to call a father and I don't try to be a drama queen about it, but when someone mentions "abusive father" to something that doesn't deserve it, I feel offended and sickened by it. Adam's fine by me, he doesn't treat Samus like trash and he merely does what is required of him as a commander.

Other than that, your argument is...okay.

Thank you. I know its kind of fucked up to be thanking someone for a post like that, and even more fucked up that you had to live it, but...I think I just learned something.

 

[Krion_Vark]

Many have complained about how Samus freaks out and becomes helpless in the presence of Ridley at his return. I think this deserves some context though: Ridley murdered her entire planet. Yes, I realize she's killed him a dozen times by now, and I think that's the point: She's killed him in the original game, and he had to come back as a robot for most of his tenure through the other games.

During this game it is BEFORE the Prime games. Therefore saying she has killed him a thousand and 1 times before does not matter. Learn the time line of the series first

I don't think it would be terribly remiss to say that Samus has some form of PTSD, considering everything that happened to her.

Read the backstory manga a bit its not that great but gives a bit of insight into her story BEFORE the games. Yeah she already had her freak out with Ridley in there so this freakout shouldn't really be there. (this is going with both parts of the quote)

But maybe it is how this encounter ends that rubs people the wrong way, with the much hated character Adam coming out to save her, implying that the "little girl" needs a "big, strong man" to save her. Specifically, everyone hates that it's THAT big, strong man who saves her

This game failed at putting the relationship in a good light. If it actually showed anything remotely close to what is hinted at in Fusion it would have been a lot better to why it was him.

Samus's stunted development and fractured childhood

I once again say read the manga. She gets A LOT more development living with the Chrozo who were non-violent but gave her the greatest weapon in the universe which was all of their latent power.

This explains the final and most often cited example of Other: M's failure, the Varia Suit encounter. It's been said that there is no reason Samus would risk her life to obey a stupid order from someone who isn't even really her direct superior anymore, and if it were isolated to just that, they'd be correct. But when you combine the surrogate father figure effect with that survivor's guilt

I am saying read the manga a lot in this response. and here comes a spoiler about the manga

Spoiler

There was a Chrozo who pretty much sold out the other Chrozo to MB and the Space Pirates and the making of the Metroid as a weapon rather than just something to take out the X Parasite.
He was her father figure and felt betrayed by him until he sacrificed himself to let Samus escape and tell the Galactic Federation about Mother Brain.

It's funny that we hold Samus up on this pedestal of strong, well characterized female protagonists. We call Other: M exploitative, but we forget how we first found out Samus was a woman in Metroid: She did a little strip-tease for us at the end of the game by taking off her armor and showing us her leotard. Face it everyone, the reason games like Dead or Alive: Beach Volleyball exist is because of sequences like that.

You do know that her taking off her armor completely was a bonus for COMPLETING the game 100% always has been.

In the end, Other: M is a passable game that gives us valuable information about Samus. We don't like that information, but it's truth. It's a hell of a lot more plausible than the opposing characterization I've heard from Other: M's detractors, and far more human. I think the biggest lesson we can learn from Other: M is that sometimes, our characters aren't as unshakable or heroic as we'd like to think, and that's a reality we're going to have to live with if this medium is ever going to advance. Sometimes the good guys really are just flawed people with good reasons and strong resolve, but most of the time every good guy is one breakdown from becoming a victim. It's the acknowledgement of that fact that prepares us to deal with it and prevent that breakdown from coming, rather than ignore it and pretend we're bullet-proof. Just my two cents, though, and I welcome any further thoughts/debate.

I would probably agree with you more if this was THE FIRST game in the series if there were 0 other games that hinted at what was brought out about this. The only thing that I find good about this game is the loose end of HOW Adam dies which is brought up in Fusion and I had been wondering about it since then. Other than that the game is shit for bringing information about an established character from pretty much hints and teases from all the games in the series and a beginning story arc manga.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

I will never, EVER be persuaded to care about anything in that comic.

Then you have no business talking about what you think Samus should be. The comic was made by Nintendo themselves, therefore, and I quote you, "We don't like that information, but it's truth".

True, I did commit a contradiction, but if that's your answer to the comic, I won't bother trying to amend it.

Then how come none of the Zelda games have Link as an apple farmer who spends his life with Zelda?

I have an official manga, licensed by Nintendo that says he spent the rest of his life with Zelda running his own apple farm, after he defeated Ganon for the first time.

 

[DocBalance]

During this game it is BEFORE the Prime games. Therefore saying she has killed him a thousand and 1 times before does not matter. Learn the time line of the series first

No, Other: M occurs after the Prime games, between Super Metroid and Fusion, the current last games in the series.

Read the backstory manga a bit its not that great but gives a bit of insight into her story BEFORE the games. Yeah she already had her freak out with Ridley in there so this freakout shouldn't really be there. (this is going with both parts of the quote)

As I've expressed a dozen times in this thread, the manga is non-canon and does not matter.

This game failed at putting the relationship in a good light. If it actually showed anything remotely close to what is hinted at in Fusion it would have been a lot better to why it was him.

I agree. It wasn't supposed to be in a good light. The rest of my post explains why.

I once again say read the manga. She gets A LOT more development living with the Chrozo who were non-violent but gave her the greatest weapon in the universe which was all of their latent power.


I am saying read the manga a lot in this response. and here comes a spoiler about the manga




I would probably agree with you more if this was THE FIRST game in the series if there were 0 other games that hinted at what was brought out about this. The only thing that I find good about this game is the loose end of HOW Adam dies which is brought up in Fusion and I had been wondering about it since then. Other than that the game is shit for bringing information about an established character from pretty much hints and teases from all the games in the series and a beginning story arc manga.

For all the manga stuff, see my earlier response. Yes, we had hints and teases about Samus, and who's to say they weren't all leading up to this? Once again, just because you don't like the ending doesn't mean it wasn't intended.

 

[DivineBeastLink]

I don't personally think that it matters if the developers intended Samus to be like she is in Other M.

The point, rather, is that she was taken as a strong female character for so long that to destroy that image, even if it was never intended to be her image, is to destroy one of gaming's few strong female characters. That's something that we don't need.