Do you think The Witcher series is "mature?"

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Auron

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Moonlight Butterfly said:
Auron said:
Why people keep comparing worlds with medieval social paradigms with modern western society and condemning it when it's not up to par?
Yeah because medieval worlds totally had elves and monsters. The thing you can't possibly miss is sexism?

What is wrong with people.
Elves and other types of fantastical creatures usually represent a group of people in our own world, it's all related to medieval legends, having fantasy elements does not corrupt the social paradigm and far as I know there is more than one leader or warrior female among Witcher's cast, I do not see the problem. Otherwise we might as well stop studying history as well, history's sexist, games based on history legend or otherwise have sexist characters and mentality even if they aren't. Political correctness is trying to destroy every last bit of good comedy and fiction.
 

Seneschal

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Jun 27, 2009
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SmashLovesTitanQuest said:
This guy has an interesting point.

Any people from Eastern Europe up in this *****? I'd like to hear their input on this.
Well, the stance towards nudity in my country is somewhat more puritanical, but he's got the gist of it. The dialogue in the Witcher is much more familiar to me in tone, humour and colloquialism than the one you're liable to find in BioWare games.

The Witcher often has pedestrian dialogue. Characters are allowed to be stupid, boring, or incoherent when you talk to them; it makes conversations seem more spontaneous. They can waste your time. What they say is rarely a staged set-piece meant to further the plot; sometimes, they just hang out.
Dragon Age, in comparison, is equal parts Tolkien and Joss Whedon - ostentatious drama that reads like a medieval historian's chronicle (for the plot-exposition parts), or very modern banter (for your allies and their character development). Both are essentially modern inventions, and in contrast with The Witcher, are very polished and functional.

Eastern European cinema in the last half-century has really been into social realism. Even comedies (especially Serbian ones) tend to joke about how hilariously tragic the situation is. Cynicism is very common, befitting countries that have forever been on the doorstep of the First World but always a step behind, hampered by unfriendly conditions or their their own internal divisions. Foul language and nudity are also often present for verisimilitude's sake. Sexualized female nudity is somewhere between being disgraceful (at least in my heavily-catholic country) and being necessary (since machismo is alive and well here, and needing to demonstrate masculinity requires that you must want to ogle scantily clad women). When not glamorized, nudity serves to show how destitute a character is, and how his basic dignity was taken from him/her. Also, the almost ludicrous xenophobia that you see in the Witcher is very much representative of the multi-ethnic environment in Eastern Europe, and is probably the best example of an (appropriately) balkanized setting that I've seen in gaming.
 

Moonlight Butterfly

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Stavros Dimou said:
Moonlight Butterfly said:
BloatedGuppy said:
I didn't mean for Triss to have a game all to herself just that you could either play as Geralt or Triss. Like playing as Angel or Buffy. I don't think that's too much of a stretch of the imagination.

None of those things were levelled towards the second game, sorry if it seemed that way. Also I never portrayed you as a 'champion of sexism'...what? Just that I find it strange that everyone seems defensive of a stupid trope that only seeks to extend sexism.

It would be nice to have a game we could all enjoy but since the book its based on seems like a male version of a cheap romance novel then I guess we can't.

Why they can't just portray women as equal is beyond me.
so for you every single game that doesn't have a female protagonist is sexist ?
I think YOU are the sexist.
I didn't say that, I said if CDPROJECKT made a gesture like having a female character I would believe that they had changed. I said nothing about it being sexist because you can only play as a guy.

This is the problem. People don't listen they just see what they want to.

bastardofmelbourne said:
If I actually thought that was the reason they made medieval type games sexist I would be all for it. I actually think they do it because men like it that women are oppressed. It gets kind of tiring after a while. I try to put across my point of view on this but most of the time I just get shouted down and told my opinion is worthless.

It would be nice to play The Witcher without the sexism. Because for people who are a part of the oppression it just isn't fun. I can imagine it's entertaining for those who are privileged enough to be in the same position as Geralt ie above it all but when you are constantly told your sex is worthless even by something that is meant to be an escape and fun it gets to you after a while.

Judging from your responses I guess you guys can't understand that.
 

ninjaRiv

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Does it need to be? I find the politics interesting, the gameplay fun, the characters engaging and the whole thing is just cool, imo.

This seems to be what people criticize most about The Witcher and I find that odd.
 

Dr Jones

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endtherapture said:
Also, calling Witcher series "mature" is like calling XBox Live a civilized discussion platform.
A lot of people appear to have this problem with TW series. Are they just Dragon Age fanboys or is it a legitimate argument?
Of course it's not a legitimate argument, hell, it ain't even an argument. They have a claim but no proof and/or evidence. It'd be the same as saying "Call of Duty is mature" and then count that as a valid argument without it actually supplying any, y'know, arguments.
 

wulf3n

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Moonlight Butterfly said:
I actually think they do it because men like it that women are oppressed. It gets kind of tiring after a while.
Really? Not trying to belittle your belief or anything but that seems a bit ... I guess paranoid is the best word I can think of.

edit: not to mention incredibly sexist.

Moonlight Butterfly said:
for those who are privileged enough to be in the same position as Geralt ie above it all...
Spoken like someone who has never played the witcher :p Trust me if all of this [The Witcher] was real, being a Witcher wouldn't be much better than being a women in that world.
 

freaper

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BrotherRool said:
The Witcher isn't mature in terms of sex, women and NPC dialogue. In fact, it's incredibly immature and half the dialogue has been written by a 13 year old. There's a whole gameplay mechanic that would give people who know what a female is migraine's just thinking about the design of it.

'I couldn't sleep last night over the sound of my neighbour beating his wife' as NPC dialoge is something that belongs in Saints Row, it is the purple dildo of maturity and is only fitting in a game which doesn't understand the words it's using.


However I think once you get over the fact the writers have giggling fits whenever they hear the word 'whore', I think the politics and grey morality is fairly mature. Overall there was too much juvenile crud for me, but fantasy is often famously airy fairy and bringing in some grit is a gesture I can understand a lot of people getting behind. And the racism stuff was done pretty well.


So not Planescape: Torment, and pretty darn juvenile in some aspects, but a decent job in others
I always imagined that the reason you get the shitty jokes and remarks is because the people uttering them are backward, racist peasants. So, good character design?
 

The Madman

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BloatedGuppy said:
The Madman said:
FINALLY someone else that's familiar with Scott Lynch. It's been getting damned frustrating how little known he is despite being such an amazing author. He deserves more attention.
Lynch is probably my least favorite of my most favorite branch of fantasy...that being aggressively grey-scale low fantasy. I prefer Martin's obsessive world building (although he's starting to get lost in his own details) and Abercrombie's verve and wit to Lynch's floral prose. Still...good books. Better than most.
Eug, Martin. I'm going to be honest, just as Lynch is your least favourite Martin is mine. His books just give me no real reason to keep reading them, despite the sharp writing. The only motivation I could muster by the fourth book to even keep going was morbid curiosity and even that didn't last long as I never did finish the book. I don't see why people keep reading his books. Everyone is either dead, dying, or miserable. There's no hope. No joy. No colour. Just shades of misery and spite.

Maybe that's meant to be all grim and grey and such, but I just find it needlessly depressing. By contrast Lynch doesn't pull his punches and is more than happy to get his characters and setting dirty, but there's always at least some glimmer of hope. Some sense of adventure. Both of which are completely lacking in Martins work.
 

Azahul

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Zachary Amaranth said:
Well, it seems to be aimed at a slightly older batch of teenage boys, so I guess so.

Azahul said:
Misogynistic? It's a game with strong women, with weak women, with honourable women (heck, the only truly "good" character I met in the course of my first playthrough was a woman), with despicable villainesses, and men of every stripe as well.
I'm going to say this, especially since he clearly commented on the writing. You can have strong women and still have misogynistic writing. The end result? Misogynistic, still.

As the two are not mutually exclusive, the argument presented here is worthless.
And by the same virtue, you can have misogynistic characters without it being misogynistic writing. The Witcher 2 has a lot of misogynistic characters, but that's about it. It portrays its women in much the same way as it portrays its men, as human beings just as capable of comitting acts of good or evil as anyone else, and it doesn't punish its female characters for it in the way you'd expect a truly misogynistic game to do.

And since you don't offer any examples of misogyny that is a product of the writing rather than the characters of the setting, I'm going to call your argument worthless. Strong female characters are a good indication that the game is not misogynistic, regardless of whether or not the two are mutually exclusive.
 

Auron

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Political correct(or progressive if you will.) overanalysis is a wonderful thing, basically you can write strong or weak men however you want then you can write strong women, if you're writing a woman with flaws you're mysoginistic. If you're being diverse but you include characters with any trace of mysoginy(or any ism, check the latest Tarantino controversy when Spike Lee tried to discredit him with stupidity.) you're automatically assumed to think like that one character, brillant.
 

bastardofmelbourne

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Moonlight Butterfly said:
If I actually thought that was the reason they made medieval type games sexist I would be all for it. I actually think they do it because men like it that women are oppressed. It gets kind of tiring after a while. I try to put across my point of view on this but most of the time I just get shouted down and told my opinion is worthless.
I...well, I don't have much of a response to that other than to say that I don't think Sapkowski put pervasive, institutionalised sexism in his setting because he enjoys subjugating women.

Robert Jordan, maybe. That's an allegation I'll lend credence to. But Sapkowski's novels are very firmly against the sexist and racist tendencies of the authority figures within the setting. In fact, a major theme of the novels is the anti-authoritarianism of its lower-class protagonist, who's essentially the fantasy equivalent of the plumber that everybody needs and nobody wants to pay.

It would be nice to play The Witcher without the sexism. Because for people who are a part of the oppression it just isn't fun. I can imagine it's entertaining for those who are privileged enough to be in the same position as Geralt ie above it all but when you are constantly told your sex is worthless even by something that is meant to be an escape and fun it gets to you after a while.

Judging from your responses I guess you guys can't understand that.
Look, I can see that it would upset you to see women treated brutally in a fantasy setting but...that's the point. It's meant to be upsetting and unpleasant. That's how you convey the fact that sexism is upsetting and unpleasant. People don't play this game and go "Herp a derp, that lady gets beaten by her husband! I am so hard right now."

Would you prefer it if the games were whitewashed and never addressed sexism as a problem?
 

ShadowsofHope

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Sorry, I was perusing this thread and I really feel the need to commentate.

Moonlight Butterfly said:
It would be nice to play The Witcher without the sexism. Because for people who are a part of the oppression it just isn't fun. I can imagine it's entertaining for those who are privileged enough to be in the same position as Geralt ie above it all but when you are constantly told your sex is worthless even by something that is meant to be an escape and fun it gets to you after a while. Judging from your responses I guess you guys can't understand that.
Geralt is hardly above it all in The Witcher series. He's treated as a non-human monster by most of the male characters and many of the female characters in the game, only worth having around because he's the only one whom can match monsters in sheer strength and speed that attack these people. There are entire propaganda books written in The Witcher universe that describe Witchers as being scum from the pits of Hell itself, monsters that run around raping, murdering and pillaging what they desire. If Geralt didn't have his superhuman strength and intimidating unhuman eyes, most characters you meet would probably care about him as much as they do the women. The Scoia'tael, non-human terror (debatable) groups are treated like blacks were in early America, only good either dead or as slaves to humans. Several women are actually treated better than Geralt in both games, he has no real privileges.

People only tolerate him in cities long enough for him to slay the monster, then they either run him out or he leaves immediately afterwards.Being a man might make you a King by sheer luck of birth in the Witcher universe, but most other men and women in it are equally treated like shit. There are definitely more sympathetic and well developed females in the Witcher universe than there are males.

As for the women he meets and CAN bed (important), I agree that the sex cards were stupid. However, in a universe where sexual diseases are quite widespread and Witchers are immune to disease, wouldn't you prefer a mate that wouldn't have the ability to give you an STD from a one night stand? As opposed to 99% of all the other filthy males that are rank with them? I would.
 

BrotherRool

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freaper said:
I always imagined that the reason you get the shitty jokes and remarks is because the people uttering them are backward, racist peasants. So, good character design?
If so it's a fail in voice acting, because it doesn't sound like they're joking.
 

Izzy1320

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In my opinion, a rather biased one as it is, The Witcher series explores some very mature topics in its scope, though the games never managed to capture the tone quite as well as the books did. Yes, they are focused on the oldest cliche in game story history, that of amnesia, where Geralt wakes up without his memory or any recollection of the events that brought him to Caer Morhen, let alone the events that led to his assumed death years previously. The first game seemed only tangentially related to the books, with a few key characters appearing to guide Geralt through his path in the game. The player was then thrust almost without aid into a massive political intrigue, one guided by a figure closer to the throne than most would assume. It stuck reasonably close to its dark fantasy roots, without necessitating player knowledge of the books that had inspired it. Although some, myself included, would have probably enjoyed knowing a bit more about the events that took place between the books and the game, such an inclusion would likely have alienated those just picking up the series for the first time. For example, though Geralt is always referred to as Gwynnbleid, or White Wolf, or as his most common moniker, 'Geralt of Rivia', he is, in fact, not from Rivia at all, though he has been referred to as having a Rivian accent. Sex, and the pursuit of it, is a recognized part of both games, though the first made it more of an accomplishment with the cards the player would get for bedding certain women in each chapter. Admittedly immature in both tone and usually dialogue as well, these encounters always felt a little out of place to me. Despite these rather awkward situations, the game hinted at a depth of lore behind the world, one of the most notable examples being the racism and degradation aimed at nonhumans, both Elves and Dwarves. Here, for once, the story matched that of the books, as Geralt was in fact 'slain' in the Rivian Pogroms, along with his lover, Yennefer, who is never mentioned in the first game outright, and only comes into play in the second, as Geralt's memory begins to return. These details mark the maturity of the story of the witcher, though it's content may contain some rather less serious events.
 

Moonlight Butterfly

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bastardofmelbourne said:
I guess I figured you guys would only be so defensive of it if you enjoyed it.

But it would be nice for women to be treated equally in fantasy settings yes, I don't think that's 'whitewashing' just being more inclusive and not reminding us of the issue when we are trying to enjoy ourselves.
 

bastardofmelbourne

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Moonlight Butterfly said:
I guess I figured you guys would only be so defensive of it if you enjoyed it.
I understand that this may be a radical suggestion, but perhaps the reason guys get so defensive about it is because you are insinuating that the product that they like is sexist, and thus that they are sexists for liking it.
 

rbstewart7263

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Moonlight Butterfly said:
I played the first one and the cards made me feel physically ill. I didn't buy Witcher 2 because of that. A lot of people defend it by saying 'Oh it's the books setting everything is sexist'. Well that's nice and everything but it doesn't stop it from making me feel uncomfortable.

So yeah it's probably mature in the way Leisure suit Larry is mature...

It would be nice to enjoy the gameplay without that stuff being rubbed in your face but what can you do. Hoping cdprojeckt bring an RPG out one day with a different setting so maybe I can play it.

It's the only AAA game series I really feel excluded from as a female.
Well you know its common practice for girls to also brag and show off there conquests in certain circles so I dont really see the problem.
 

neur0mans3r

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Moonlight Butterfly said:
Stavros Dimou said:
Moonlight Butterfly said:
BloatedGuppy said:
I didn't mean for Triss to have a game all to herself just that you could either play as Geralt or Triss. Like playing as Angel or Buffy. I don't think that's too much of a stretch of the imagination.

None of those things were levelled towards the second game, sorry if it seemed that way. Also I never portrayed you as a 'champion of sexism'...what? Just that I find it strange that everyone seems defensive of a stupid trope that only seeks to extend sexism.

It would be nice to have a game we could all enjoy but since the book its based on seems like a male version of a cheap romance novel then I guess we can't.

Why they can't just portray women as equal is beyond me.
so for you every single game that doesn't have a female protagonist is sexist ?
I think YOU are the sexist.
I didn't say that, I said if CDPROJECKT made a gesture like having a female character I would believe that they had changed. I said nothing about it being sexist because you can only play as a guy.

This is the problem. People don't listen they just see what they want to.

bastardofmelbourne said:
If I actually thought that was the reason they made medieval type games sexist I would be all for it. I actually think they do it because men like it that women are oppressed. It gets kind of tiring after a while. I try to put across my point of view on this but most of the time I just get shouted down and told my opinion is worthless.

It would be nice to play The Witcher without the sexism. Because for people who are a part of the oppression it just isn't fun. I can imagine it's entertaining for those who are privileged enough to be in the same position as Geralt ie above it all but when you are constantly told your sex is worthless even by something that is meant to be an escape and fun it gets to you after a while.

Judging from your responses I guess you guys can't understand that.
There is something lost in translation from a Polish book, to a Polish game, to an international game, if these are the conclusions that can be reached. The original books still have not been translated to English, but that is only part of the problem.

Geralt is an outsider, a mutant that is feared and despised. There is no one who understands discrimination better than him. The whole series of books give a very modern commentary on the injustice, hatred and discrimination from the perspective of an outsider looking in. The setting is perhaps overly grim, combining the worst of Medieval and Industrial societies. This is not a nice place to live. People are shortsighted and stupid, but also practical. The old order of the world is changing, and everything is in turmoil.

The games capture that universe pretty well in my opinion. I never got the impression that women were described in any generally negative way. Men are much worse.

PS. Cyberpunk will probably have a detailed character creation with both genders being viable options. The Witcher was supposed to have a new player character, but in early stages of development it was decided to use Geralt instead.

PPS. The sex cards in the first game are described as a mini game in the discussion. I never got the impression that the game made a challenge out of it. There is not a progress bar, or a quest.
 

Moonlight Butterfly

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bastardofmelbourne said:
Moonlight Butterfly said:
I guess I figured you guys would only be so defensive of it if you enjoyed it.
I understand that this may be a radical suggestion, but perhaps the reason guys get so defensive about it is because you are insinuating that the product that they like is sexist, and thus that they are sexists for liking it.
Like I said before if I was saying gamers were sexist I'd be including myself in that since I've been gaming for over 25 years.

I'm kind of puzzled as to why you 'enjoy' seeing women oppressed though, yes.

As for the 'Geralt is oppressed' theme I never got that when I played the witcher. I got more of an impression that he was a Gary Stu. An overpowered male fantasy figure who could get all the ladies. Maybe I missed the point...