Question, If Anita Sarkeesian is Right, why is Jack Thompson Wrong?

[Netrigan]

But how exactly would that apply to this case.

She's making an argument (or critique). This is largely opinion based and what she's done is identify a trend, provides examples of the trend, and makes a case for its undesirability.

So far, this is "damsels in distress" and "women as decoration". And while we can argue about some of her examples, by and large she has provided a number of examples of damsels in distress and women being used as decoration. And enough examples are provided to argue that it's not an insignificant number.

A lot of the time it is pulling examples out of context to fit her claims about the games being sexist. She is essentially ignoring the larger game to focus on a single element claiming this is a large problem.

Time to do the same with an example.

The Girl series (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo et al) is a highly sexist series promoting the control of women and sexual abuse showcasing a girl who simply has daddy issues so badly she tries to kill her own father.


The Reality.
Just in case no-one someone wants to watch the series.

Spoiler

Lizbeth Salander is a damn strong capable person who despite being abuse takes matters into her own hands to seek revenge. Her father is actually an an ex KGB agent feeding information to the government an under government protection but on the side working as part of a criminal empire running a huge sex trafficking operation. He tries to have her killed in an attack by a motorcycle gang member then frames her for three murder. Her Father also used to ruthlessly beat her mother until one day Lizbeth dumped petrol on him and set him on fire. He survived and she was essentially tortured in a reform / mental institute..

As in any good argument, she's selected examples which back up her argument. If you wish to make a counter-argument, you provide examples which argue the opposite point. Thus far, the opposite argument (i.e. women save male characters and men are used as decoration) are a lot thinner. A couple of people have put forth the argument that the number of examples she uses is a small percentage of the games released... although I find this particular argument a bit weak since how can we argue anything is a trend. GTA clones wouldn't be a trend since they make up such a tiny percentage of the games released, military shooters wouldn't be a trend because they make up such a tiny percentage of the games released, we could probably make an argument that sequels aren't a trend because so many games are original IPs.

Except she's claiming to be presenting a critical thought piece of academic material. Yet she is not presenting all the relevant information required. She is not letting people think critically based on the evidence provided, she has already coloured the evidence and tells people what to think of it.

Where the cherry picking fallacy comes into play is when you substitute cherry picked data for scientific data. Such as you ask Republicans what they think about Obama and pass this off as a random survey or you try to make the case that Global Warming doesn't exist because Rhode Island is experiencing a mild summer. A cigarette funded health survey that only examines the cancer rates in teenage smokers. It's about data manipulation, whether conscious or unconscious. There's really not much in the way of data for her to manipulate. She may get the context wrong (either on purpose or accidentally), but there's a female in need of rescuing, there's a stripper who wants you to fondle her. Those data points are objective, but What those data points mean can't really be parsed in a scientific manner. What those data points mean is largely subjective.

Hence there are such things as peer reviewed journals and others repeating the research presented to verify it. In science next to no research of any impact will be put out without people with no vested interest verifying this either to disprove it or support it.

In science if you manipulate the data to outright lie you will get caught or disproved unless there is constant backing to fight the idea being disproved.

To the degree that anyone who goes looking for something subjective will invariably find it, she's letting bias lead her work; but there's really not much of a scientific basis any of this could have been built upon. It's an opinion piece. MovieBob will invariably come to the conclusion that First Person Shooters are not as good as his beloved Nintendo mascot games. She's not really much different, only she spends a lot more time defining terms because it's academia.

That is why in science failures are published just the same as a success because you can learn more from a failure than something working just fine.

The difference is Moviebob is largely presenting his work as his opinion and a piece of entertainment. It's "The World according to Bob" essentially. It's not an academic thesis by Moviebob for critical thinkers to explore the evidence presented and draw their conclusions. Except Anita's is "Gaming according to Anita" except she is trying to pass this off as some great academic critical thought piece.

And as I say, I take something away from it that she probably didn't intend. I look upon this as a call for better writer. Take the damsel trope. Star Wars came out when I was seven years old and I was extremely lucky that it's one of my first remembered brushes with the trope because Lucas had a lot of fun subverting tropes back in the day. The damsel lays around waiting to be rescued (although she feeds the Empire false information so hero move) and when she realizes what an amateur hour rescue attempt is being made (an assessment backed up by Han, "he's the brains"), she takes charge of her own rescue. Over in Raiders we have Marion who is making several attempts to free herself, all of which are quite fun to watch. In Return of the Jedi, Leia takes down Jabba at the first opportunity. Forty years ago, George Lucas was showing up Max Payne 3... that's just all kinds of disappointing.

Ok if we take the first earliest bumbling film attempts and the first earliest bumbling video games and use them the age the industry we have

Film 1911
Games 1952

So Star Wars was 1977
video gaming is still developing, not I doubt it will take till 2018 to get Star wars level with plenty already trying to subvert the trope. In fact what you just did was take a work that could be seen as progressive and compare it to one you saw as non progressive. I mean you could equally compare it with say Braid or Bioshock infinite and claim the industry might be surpassing Star Wars already

Spoiler

Just a few points.

1) I'd like examples of what games she's taking out of context. I'm not deep into damsel saving games, so I'm left with three games with the Dead Damsel, which I've already covered. Women as Decoration is much more up my alley and the only ones I've seen any argument against including have been Watch Dogs and Far Cry 3.

2) No matter how much she gussies this stuff up with intellectual verbage, these are opinion pieces. I've got a weakness for intellectual balderdash and there's rarely anything scientific in its method. You get into the liberal arts, you're dealing with a lot of Bullshit Artists. If you're lucky, it's interesting and/or insightful bullshit. If not, it's a bunch of jargon meant to confuse the other Bullshit Artists.

3) New mediums build upon the successes of older ones. Will Eisner took great delight adapting tricks from plays and Citizen Kane to the medium of comics. It takes a while for them to discover the strengths and weaknesses of their respective mediums, but the attitudes on display should be of their era. Birth of a Nation is understandable in 1915 given the attitudes of the day, but it would be completely sickening if made in 1983.

 

[Netrigan]

In fact in every one of her videos her choice to omit the additional footage that was in the scene would refute pretty much any point she had. For example, a scene in a game where you must kill your lover before proceeding with the game. She argues that this expresses an idea that violence against women is okay.

The full context of the scene the main male character is practically in tears, distraught over what has happened, thinking of any way out of this possible, while she pleads with him to end her suffering, end her pain as she has been irreversibly and genetically fused or altered to have a spider like beast attached to a portion of her body.

I suppose if given the choice you could have either shot her, or left her to suffer and die, also ignoring that as the character you acted in self defense from an attack you weren't attacking her just for the shits and giggles.

Thanks for providing some examples beyond the usual two or three which we've picked to death. I love the use of examples even if I quibble with them. It's far better than just repeating a blanket statement over and over without supporting data. I can at least understand why you think the way you do.

I've not played any of the games you mentioned so I can't quibble directly.

But quibble I will because... REASONS!!!!

I do get the annoyance with the killing of female characters. To go back to the origins of fridging female characters, I was a bit of a Green Lantern fan way back when and I remember being a bit bored with the GL, Kyle; but rather enjoyed his girlfriend.

So, of course, the more interesting character had to be killed to make the less interesting character slightly less boring.

And fuck that noise. I ended up dropping the book not long after because the number of interesting characters went from one to zero... and the last time I checked (pre nu52) DC was still trying to convince people that Kyle wasn't a worthless waste of space despite all evidence to the contrary. Talk about throwing good money after bad.

Another example which still pisses me off to this day is the excellent Clint Eastwood movie, Gran Torino. I loved the feisty Sue Lor, who recognized the inherent decency of Clint Eastwood's character and brought him out of his shell. But, sadly, her reward for being totally awesome was getting raped, while her irritating and thoroughly boring brother gets the cool car... because Ron Howard got the horse in the John Wayne version of this story.

I'm a dude and I'm wondering why these boring guys are getting the primo story arc while the females are getting the shaft. I can only imagine the frustration women go through as they see potentially interesting female characters get sidelined for the benefit of yet another male character.

So in the scene you just described, I totally see the context you're seeing... but I can also see the frustration many women have with yet another female character being thrown on the fire for male character development.

 

[Netrigan]

SNIPITY-SNIP

Not a superhero comic reader (Yuck...) but last I checked it was called "Green Lantern", not "Fridge Girl. Oh, and that tit in the green tights...".

But you know what? Gonna write a story. No plot developed yet, but it will feature ladies getting done in, bodies from floor to ceiling and a fridge when there's no more room, if I can fit that in somewhere. That one is to offend you, because you look for things to be offended by. I like that. The second feature will be gorgeous gogo-boys dancing in their underwear for the sexual gratification of other men (Note to self: Research Sebastian Young, thoroughly...<3). That one is just to confuse you.

How I'll get those two to fit together in a lovely little package will eat at me for days...

So in the scene you just described, I totally see the context you're seeing... but I can also see the frustration many women have with yet another female character being thrown on the fire for male character development.

Those frustrated women are mostly middle-class with very few problems that aren't emotional. Maybe folks can't live without a few "problems" in their lives. Maybe if they join a cause, regardless of how irrational, they think it gives them a personality. Maybe it's hard to sympathise with folks who think this is a "problem" to be concerned about. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

We exist on a board where people seem to think game endings, DLC, Call of Duty multi-player, and Anita Sarkeesian are "problems". This kind of thing ranks quite a bit higher on the list of First World Problems than just about everything which is regularly complained about here.

And perhaps you missed a bit of the context of my remarks. Why should an *ahem* interesting female character be thrown under the bus for the service of a *ahem* boring male character.

Since I love tossing out examples of the greater pop culture, the somewhat disappointing SyFy show and MMO, Defiance. The show isn't bad, with a sizable cast of characters who grow more interesting with every passing episode. It's the kind of show that promises to be quite good once they figure out how all the pieces fit together. The biggest exception to the rule would happen to be the boring white guy "rogue with a heart of gold" character at its center. The show has a huge Boring White Guy Problem and he's the star of the show.

Boring is boring. I'm a guy and I get annoyed when really interesting female characters get tossed aside to try to develop these lost causes. If they start offing properly good characters in a feeble attempt to make him slightly less boring, I'll probably move on.

As for Green Lantern, fridging the only decent character in the book was the latest (and for me, final) sin in a desperate attempt to make the book edgy. Just a few issues earlier they made the beloved previous star of the book evil and killed off dozens of popular characters... all in the service of setting up this lame Gen X Spider-Man wannabe who had to get his own, edgy "with great responsibility..." moment. Oh, woe with me, for my inability to be a proper super-hero has cost me my one and only decent supporting character... I shall declare vengeance on the man who killed her (a lame-o reject from the cancelled Captain Atom book, because we suck that hard) but at the last minute I shall wuss out and let the guy live because we can't be *that* edgy.

So, yeah, I'm kind of pissed they killed her off... and Kilowog... and fucked up Guy Gardner's on-going book... and wiped out the Guardians... and set off an entire fanbase whining about the shockingly stupid treatment of Hal Jordan... and just about everything else that particular writer did either on his own or at the behest of DC Editorial which couldn't find it with both hands, a flash-light, and a detailed map of their backside.

Back to our First World Problems.

One of the reasons I asked for examples was because I try to understand why people are expressing frustration. I just rewatched her second Damsels video and what came out loud and clear was her on-going frustration with a lack of interesting female characters in most of these games (a frustration I very much share). In an interview, she expanded her thoughts on Dishonored where she talked about how they set up a potentially interesting character with the Empress... then killed her off to start the story of a male character. She enjoyed the game, is hoping for a sequel, but her experience with the game is tinged with disappointment as there's no attempt to craft any interesting female characters other than the dead one.

So the problem isn't so much with Gears of War having Dom mercy killing his wife, but with women being relegated to a very thin strip of a male character's often-repeated story arc. Female characters are often important only in their absence, rather than their active participation within the narrative. That they can complete their duties while dead is offered up as proof of how limited their contribution is.

 

[Netrigan]

In fact in every one of her videos her choice to omit the additional footage that was in the scene would refute pretty much any point she had. For example, a scene in a game where you must kill your lover before proceeding with the game. She argues that this expresses an idea that violence against women is okay.

The full context of the scene the main male character is practically in tears, distraught over what has happened, thinking of any way out of this possible, while she pleads with him to end her suffering, end her pain as she has been irreversibly and genetically fused or altered to have a spider like beast attached to a portion of her body.

I suppose if given the choice you could have either shot her, or left her to suffer and die, also ignoring that as the character you acted in self defense from an attack you weren't attacking her just for the shits and giggles.

Thanks for providing some examples beyond the usual two or three which we've picked to death. I love the use of examples even if I quibble with them. It's far better than just repeating a blanket statement over and over without supporting data. I can at least understand why you think the way you do.

I've not played any of the games you mentioned so I can't quibble directly.

But quibble I will because... REASONS!!!!

I do get the annoyance with the killing of female characters. To go back to the origins of fridging female characters, I was a bit of a Green Lantern fan way back when and I remember being a bit bored with the GL, Kyle; but rather enjoyed his girlfriend.

So, of course, the more interesting character had to be killed to make the less interesting character slightly less boring.

And fuck that noise. I ended up dropping the book not long after because the number of interesting characters went from one to zero... and the last time I checked (pre nu52) DC was still trying to convince people that Kyle wasn't a worthless waste of space despite all evidence to the contrary. Talk about throwing good money after bad.

Another example which still pisses me off to this day is the excellent Clint Eastwood movie, Gran Torino. I loved the feisty Sue Lor, who recognized the inherent decency of Clint Eastwood's character and brought him out of his shell. But, sadly, her reward for being totally awesome was getting raped, while her irritating and thoroughly boring brother gets the cool car... because Ron Howard got the horse in the John Wayne version of this story.

I'm a dude and I'm wondering why these boring guys are getting the primo story arc while the females are getting the shaft. I can only imagine the frustration women go through as they see potentially interesting female characters get sidelined for the benefit of yet another male character.

So in the scene you just described, I totally see the context you're seeing... but I can also see the frustration many women have with yet another female character being thrown on the fire for male character development.

I can't say I don't understand your outlook, the point is however, you came to the fridging conclusion based off the additional evidence I supported on your own. I would call your critique of a trope valid.

What she made it seem like with her limited display, was that this was perpetuating violence against women from their perspective lover... Which in reality it was simply a tradgedy, perhaps overplayed yes, but not to be mistaken with the man being intentionally violent towards the women he loves.

Remember I was only referring to how she suggests something that is not real to the scenario in question.

Was this game fridging a character to an extent? I wouldn't disagree with you.

Was it saying men should act violent against women? No I would say that it was an act of mercy even if the trope led to it.

The difference between me, and Anita, is that with Anita yiu have an entirely different outlook. With me, you came to your own and I would argue, while not a bad trope in itself, something of an overused trope.

IE she is deliberately misrepresenting her cherry picked facts to make the audience come to an already decided conclusion.

Most of us agree here that sexism in games are rampant. We find her misrepresenting and manipulative displays harmful to the conversation however.

And it pains us more people take her seriouslt in her misrepresented conclusions.

To put it into perspective. Your conclusion was better then Anita's. And all I did was paint the picture for you to come up with a conclusion.

After typing that up, I re-watched her second Damsel video (and read an interview she did with IGN).

I'm pretty sure her conclusion is pretty close to my own, although she hits the "violence against women" angle a lot harder than I do. With only a few exceptions, she doesn't seem to be calling out any particular example as bad. She even points out that most of these examples stand up within the in-game logic.

The problem is more with the repetition of the idea at the expense of presenting more interesting female characters. There seems to be an attempt to drive this home with spamming various character's motivations to show how similar they are to one another. After his wife is brutally murdered he must save his daughter, after his wife is brutally murdered he must save his daughter, after his wife is brutally murdered he must save his daughter, etc.

I approach the problem from an entertainment perspective. I find this type of thing boring and I think I naturally filter out most of the damsel games for exactly this reason. Infamous is a game I played which was briefly mentioned in her video and the damsel moment comes fairly deep in the game after setting up the character. And while this isn't the most original of plot developments, I was at least invested in the character.

Tb00t makes a big deal about the motivation being love and therein lies the problem with so much of the trope. Love has nothing to do with it... at least not the only love which counts in these circumstances, my love. Putting a non-entity of a character in jeopardy because the game tells me I love her is not love. Making me care about this character and making her absence hurt is love. I just got through playing the excellent prologue of The Last Of Us for the second time and it's a thing of beauty. By putting us in the shoes of a doomed character, I bonded with her in a way I don't normally do in these kinds of games. If you see this kind of thing coming, you do mentally distance yourself to protect yourself, but The Last of Us used a nasty little trick to tear through my defenses and the character's death is a gut-punch.

Whereas Prey (another example I played before) mostly relies on me thinking the character model is pretty. I didn't feel anything for my virtual girlfriend. There was no love here. The writing simply wasn't good enough to make me love her. I'm tempted to say the same about Prototype 2, but the writing was so awful in that I don't remember anything apart from an Angry Black Man fucking shit up for some reason or other... turns out it was because his non-entity of a wife was brutally murdered and his non-entity of a daughter was kidnapped. I felt such a complete lack of love that I totally forgot either character existed.

Meanwhile Joss Whedon pulled this trick practically every week on Buffy where for the first few seasons he made Willow the regular damsel in distress, which worked every single time because we all loved Willow. When he tried the same trick with Dawn, a character most people found annoying, the trick stopped working and the constant jeopardy was a source of annoyance.

Long story slightly shorter, I use her thoughts as a jumping off point for my own. I can see her frustration and it mirrors a lot of my own frustrations. I wouldn't phrase it as she does because violence against women isn't exactly something I dwell upon... but the gaping void of interesting female characters in so many games is something I didn't need her to point out. The fridging of interesting female characters to making boring male characters slightly less boring did need to be pointed out to me, but often I was aware something wrong was in the air but just couldn't locate the source of the smell.

 

[Netrigan]

SNIPITY-SNIP

Not a superhero comic reader (Yuck...) but last I checked it was called "Green Lantern", not "Fridge Girl. Oh, and that tit in the green tights...".

But you know what? Gonna write a story. No plot developed yet, but it will feature ladies getting done in, bodies from floor to ceiling and a fridge when there's no more room, if I can fit that in somewhere. That one is to offend you, because you look for things to be offended by. I like that. The second feature will be gorgeous gogo-boys dancing in their underwear for the sexual gratification of other men (Note to self: Research Sebastian Young, thoroughly...<3). That one is just to confuse you.

How I'll get those two to fit together in a lovely little package will eat at me for days...

So in the scene you just described, I totally see the context you're seeing... but I can also see the frustration many women have with yet another female character being thrown on the fire for male character development.

Those frustrated women are mostly middle-class with very few problems that aren't emotional. Maybe folks can't live without a few "problems" in their lives. Maybe if they join a cause, regardless of how irrational, they think it gives them a personality. Maybe it's hard to sympathise with folks who think this is a "problem" to be concerned about. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

We exist on a board where people seem to think game endings, DLC, Call of Duty multi-player, and Anita Sarkeesian are "problems". This kind of thing ranks quite a bit higher on the list of First World Problems than just about everything which is regularly complained about here.

And perhaps you missed a bit of the context of my remarks. Why should an *ahem* interesting female character be thrown under the bus for the service of a *ahem* boring male character.

Since I love tossing out examples of the greater pop culture, the somewhat disappointing SyFy show and MMO, Defiance. The show isn't bad, with a sizable cast of characters who grow more interesting with every passing episode. It's the kind of show that promises to be quite good once they figure out how all the pieces fit together. The biggest exception to the rule would happen to be the boring white guy "rogue with a heart of gold" character at its center. The show has a huge Boring White Guy Problem and he's the star of the show.

Boring is boring. I'm a guy and I get annoyed when really interesting female characters get tossed aside to try to develop these lost causes. If they start offing properly good characters in a feeble attempt to make him slightly less boring, I'll probably move on.

As for Green Lantern, fridging the only decent character in the book was the latest (and for me, final) sin in a desperate attempt to make the book edgy. Just a few issues earlier they made the beloved previous star of the book evil and killed off dozens of popular characters... all in the service of setting up this lame Gen X Spider-Man wannabe who had to get his own, edgy "with great responsibility..." moment. Oh, woe with me, for my inability to be a proper super-hero has cost me my one and only decent supporting character... I shall declare vengeance on the man who killed her (a lame-o reject from the cancelled Captain Atom book, because we suck that hard) but at the last minute I shall wuss out and let the guy live because we can't be *that* edgy.

So, yeah, I'm kind of pissed they killed her off... and Kilowog... and fucked up Guy Gardner's on-going book... and wiped out the Guardians... and set off an entire fanbase whining about the shockingly stupid treatment of Hal Jordan... and just about everything else that particular writer did either on his own or at the behest of DC Editorial which couldn't find it with both hands, a flash-light, and a detailed map of their backside.

Back to our First World Problems.

One of the reasons I asked for examples was because I try to understand why people are expressing frustration. I just rewatched her second Damsels video and what came out loud and clear was her on-going frustration with a lack of interesting female characters in most of these games (a frustration I very much share). In an interview, she expanded her thoughts on Dishonored where she talked about how they set up a potentially interesting character with the Empress... then killed her off to start the story of a male character. She enjoyed the game, is hoping for a sequel, but her experience with the game is tinged with disappointment as there's no attempt to craft any interesting female characters other than the dead one.

So the problem isn't so much with Gears of War having Dom mercy killing his wife, but with women being relegated to a very thin strip of a male character's often-repeated story arc. Female characters are often important only in their absence, rather than their active participation within the narrative. That they can complete their duties while dead is offered up as proof of how limited their contribution is.

Let me talk to you about one of my favorite game series. Metroid.

So you can imagine I was pissed with other M right?

Well... Not so much.

You see unlike other so called Metroid fans here or so claimed, I knew the backstory of her parents, and Ridley before other M. It was portrayed in a comic series in Nintendo Power back when Super Metroid came out.

So she was raised by the Fedaration, under a figure she regarded as a father. And people said "they destroyed our lifeless non existent character who only served to be a woman in essentially every former game!" When really the story had been layed out nearly a decade before to be exactly like that.

What people whined about was that Samus didn't live up to their ideals. Ignoring that she was still the same badass but had incorporated a storyline already written for her nearly a decade before hand.

The US audience essentially refused to see the character I already knew was there because of my love for the franchise.

They wanted to make Samus their own ideal, as opposed to the ideal Nintendo wrote for her.

She had her vulnerabilities, her weaknesses like all good characters have. But she was still strong, able, and came out on top at the end of the day despite all odds.

But she wasn't good enough because she didn't meet their ideals.

In the least she wasn't the generic hardass asshole male character every other character is and actually seemed potentially human, but hell didn't meet their standards.

I am bitter to the Anti other M communities to this day, for being so damned blind to the actual history of Samus.

Not a Metroid fan, but I am a bit aware of the controversy over attempts to flesh out her character.

I think this is more a case of Fan Expectation than anything else. If you leave something hanging out there long enough, fans claim it and you run afoul of their expectations... every single time.

If Valve decided to actually develop Gordon Freeman's personality instead of just making him a mute crowbar, then you can bet that fans would be outraged that said personality is a complete betrayal of everything Gordon stands for... which, in reality, is absolutely nothing.

Samus strikes me as another similarly empty vessel protagonist which fans filled with their own experience, and nothing could possibly compare to that.

But I should point out, this isn't what I'm talking about when I talk about interesting characters. Half-Life is beloved because the game filled the universe (well, starting with 2) with a bunch of interesting characters, most importantly your female side-kick whose life does not revolve around Gordon Freeman. You're an important part of her life, but she's got all sorts of stuff going on and you're frequently drafted to take care of her personal business.

 

[carnex]

I just want to say that I wasn't forced to take that class, so I can't really say much on it itself. As far as I know, though, it was simply a lecture, similar to a mandatory lecture on honesty, that was based largely on this paper [http://www.keithedwards.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Edwards.Headrick.pdf], which I would highly advise reading at least up until the section "Rape Culture". A short version, though, is this: Placing the responsibility to prevent rape on a woman's need to avoid dangerous situations is not only unfair but unreasonable given the current rape culture and statistics. In response, we should also be focusing on educating men about rape and getting them to put in some effort as well. And no, the author is not malicious towards men.

But anyways, the lecture, as far as I know, is itself a response to ridiculous cultural norms surrounding rape which often leaves men ignorant of the real issues surrounding rape. This sort of highlights how the lecture is itself a response to a problematic culture that negatively affects the worldview of many men, who, as we know, also dominate the game industry as writers, designers, and players. As a result, I still don't think we really have a good basis to claim that the stories are ultimately designed and (initially) interpreted to paint men as some incredibly corruptible monster while women are pure innocents.

All that I have read on topic actually starts from one really terrible but never the less true fact. Sexual Assault, especially non-violent one, is one of the hardest if not THE hardest crime to prove. So many factor go against it's prosecution it's ridiculous. Sex is a natural behavior, sexually aggressive behavior is cultural expected from men, it almost always happens in intimate circumstances, many if not all forms of sexual assault are practiced as consenting sex etc. List could go on for miles.

That being said, expanding what Rape is and eroding due process is not the acceptable way of correcting that. Rape Panic resulted in strictly shameful acts like "Dear Colleague" letter which basically ensures that if a male student gets accused of raping another person his academic career is done. It has led to student council being allowed to peruse what is strictly criminal justice jurisdiction.

And than we have Feminist Movement with their own agenda that scew it even further with restricting Rape as something that only men can do and other ridiculous policies and fallacies.

Correct me if I'm doing this wrong

-Feminists advocate domestic and intimate partner abuse is gender segregated (men do it, women suffer it)
-Anita self-identifies as feminist
-Her videos are leaning towards that side
-There is no proof or action that would suggest she leans other way, or at least not to my knowledge.

Based on that, I would say that it's actually pretty safe to assume that Anita holds the belief that Feminism as a movement advocates.

Feminism itself doesn't really say that domestic abuse is completely segregated, though I'm honestly not sure how often well-respected feminists actually address female-on-male domestic violence either, and it wouldn't surprise me if certain subsets of feminism do completely segregate domestic violence. However, I'm not sure Anita's exact stance on it all, as it could have just been an unintended implication made because of a sloppy presentation of the issue.

I, myself, won't say one word, just give you an example
You are welcome

Like I've already stated, we don't need to characterize every NPC. There are times to do it and times to not do it, but I'd say when games spend their time sexualizing female NPCs and letting us commit violence against them without giving much, if any, effort to characterizing them or other female NPCs, then the game is starting to deliver some (likely unintentional) disturbing messages about women's place in society.

But, by that very logic, every time you beat up men that shows off you are sending disturbing messages. Your logic doesn't hold up unless you treat women as special snowflake which is what whole Anita's shtick is based upon.

 

[Netrigan]

I just want to say that I wasn't forced to take that class, so I can't really say much on it itself. As far as I know, though, it was simply a lecture, similar to a mandatory lecture on honesty, that was based largely on this paper [http://www.keithedwards.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Edwards.Headrick.pdf], which I would highly advise reading at least up until the section "Rape Culture". A short version, though, is this: Placing the responsibility to prevent rape on a woman's need to avoid dangerous situations is not only unfair but unreasonable given the current rape culture and statistics. In response, we should also be focusing on educating men about rape and getting them to put in some effort as well. And no, the author is not malicious towards men.

But anyways, the lecture, as far as I know, is itself a response to ridiculous cultural norms surrounding rape which often leaves men ignorant of the real issues surrounding rape. This sort of highlights how the lecture is itself a response to a problematic culture that negatively affects the worldview of many men, who, as we know, also dominate the game industry as writers, designers, and players. As a result, I still don't think we really have a good basis to claim that the stories are ultimately designed and (initially) interpreted to paint men as some incredibly corruptible monster while women are pure innocents.

All that I have read on topic actually starts from one really terrible but never the less true fact. Sexual Assault, especially non-violent one, is one of the hardest if not THE hardest crime to prove. So many factor go against it's prosecution it's ridiculous. Sex is a natural behavior, sexually aggressive behavior is cultural expected from men, it almost always happens in intimate circumstances, many if not all forms of sexual assault are practiced as consenting sex etc. List could go on for miles.

That being said, expanding what Rape is and eroding due process is not the acceptable way of correcting that. Rape Panic resulted in strictly shameful acts like "Dear Colleague" letter which basically ensures that if a male student gets accused of raping another person his academic career is done. It has led to student council being allowed to peruse what is strictly criminal justice jurisdiction.

And than we have Feminist Movement with their own agenda that scew it even further with restricting Rape as something that only men can do and other ridiculous policies and fallacies.

Correct me if I'm doing this wrong

-Feminists advocate domestic and intimate partner abuse is gender segregated (men do it, women suffer it)
-Anita self-identifies as feminist
-Her videos are leaning towards that side
-There is no proof or action that would suggest she leans other way, or at least not to my knowledge.

Based on that, I would say that it's actually pretty safe to assume that Anita holds the belief that Feminism as a movement advocates.

Feminism itself doesn't really say that domestic abuse is completely segregated, though I'm honestly not sure how often well-respected feminists actually address female-on-male domestic violence either, and it wouldn't surprise me if certain subsets of feminism do completely segregate domestic violence. However, I'm not sure Anita's exact stance on it all, as it could have just been an unintended implication made because of a sloppy presentation of the issue.

I, myself, won't say one word, just give you an example
You are welcome

Like I've already stated, we don't need to characterize every NPC. There are times to do it and times to not do it, but I'd say when games spend their time sexualizing female NPCs and letting us commit violence against them without giving much, if any, effort to characterizing them or other female NPCs, then the game is starting to deliver some (likely unintentional) disturbing messages about women's place in society.

But, by that very logic, every time you beat up men that shows off you are sending disturbing messages. Your logic doesn't hold up unless you treat women as special snowflake which is what whole Anita's shtick is based upon.

I'm pretty sure we did this dance before, but where I disagree with you is you declaring Feminism has any singular view.

Feminism is an extremely fractured world-view which is bonded insofar as they all want the same basic outcome, equality between the sexes.

So while you say Feminists declare that only men can rape women and it's impossible for the opposite to occur, the feminist who link feminists articles on my Facebook feed completely disagree with you. The prevalence of female-on-male sexual assault was only brought to my attention by the effort of feminists.

The gender gap in colleges in favor of women was only brought to my attention by the efforts of feminists and the only people I've ever seen trying to address the imbalance and get more men into college are feminists.

And I've seen more than a few feminist commentaries on the problem of false rape accusations. They're seen as a problem, although they view rape as a more serious problem... and one backed up by FBI figures. If 1 in 10 rape accusations are false, then we need to address that, but real rape accusations are 9 in 10... and under-reported. As a man, I'm concerned about false rape accusations and protect myself as best I can (such as, don't have sex with a girl who is barely conscious... in this situation you're the one in the mini-skirt walking down Please Rape Me Alley), but I can't help but notice that the problem of rape is far more pervasive than the problem of false rape accusations. They're both important, but the numbers put rape as the more pressing concern.

This is Identity Politics so of course they pay very close attention to the problems which most affect them, but there's all sorts of different factions preaching very different things. Joanna Angel is a decidedly pro-sex feminist, while other factions want to outlaw her job as a porn actress. Feminism allows for both points of view, because it's not the slightest bit regimented. We can't say Joanna Angel is a Feminist, Feminist hate porn, therefore Joanna Angel can't possible be a porn actress and a Feminist... because logic will only make you wrong with authority in this circumstance.

I want to be cheeky and say "There Is No Logic In Feminism", but I mean there's no unifying logic to it. It's a DIY philosophy with lots of people believing completely different and contradictory things with no real attempt to make everyone toe the party line (although various factions do attempt to guilt the others). Feminist are famous for arguing among themselves. There's no controlling authority.

 

[Netrigan]

In fact in every one of her videos her choice to omit the additional footage that was in the scene would refute pretty much any point she had. For example, a scene in a game where you must kill your lover before proceeding with the game. She argues that this expresses an idea that violence against women is okay.

The full context of the scene the main male character is practically in tears, distraught over what has happened, thinking of any way out of this possible, while she pleads with him to end her suffering, end her pain as she has been irreversibly and genetically fused or altered to have a spider like beast attached to a portion of her body.

I suppose if given the choice you could have either shot her, or left her to suffer and die, also ignoring that as the character you acted in self defense from an attack you weren't attacking her just for the shits and giggles.

Thanks for providing some examples beyond the usual two or three which we've picked to death. I love the use of examples even if I quibble with them. It's far better than just repeating a blanket statement over and over without supporting data. I can at least understand why you think the way you do.

I've not played any of the games you mentioned so I can't quibble directly.

But quibble I will because... REASONS!!!!

I do get the annoyance with the killing of female characters. To go back to the origins of fridging female characters, I was a bit of a Green Lantern fan way back when and I remember being a bit bored with the GL, Kyle; but rather enjoyed his girlfriend.

So, of course, the more interesting character had to be killed to make the less interesting character slightly less boring.

And fuck that noise. I ended up dropping the book not long after because the number of interesting characters went from one to zero... and the last time I checked (pre nu52) DC was still trying to convince people that Kyle wasn't a worthless waste of space despite all evidence to the contrary. Talk about throwing good money after bad.

Another example which still pisses me off to this day is the excellent Clint Eastwood movie, Gran Torino. I loved the feisty Sue Lor, who recognized the inherent decency of Clint Eastwood's character and brought him out of his shell. But, sadly, her reward for being totally awesome was getting raped, while her irritating and thoroughly boring brother gets the cool car... because Ron Howard got the horse in the John Wayne version of this story.

I'm a dude and I'm wondering why these boring guys are getting the primo story arc while the females are getting the shaft. I can only imagine the frustration women go through as they see potentially interesting female characters get sidelined for the benefit of yet another male character.

So in the scene you just described, I totally see the context you're seeing... but I can also see the frustration many women have with yet another female character being thrown on the fire for male character development.

I can't say I don't understand your outlook, the point is however, you came to the fridging conclusion based off the additional evidence I supported on your own. I would call your critique of a trope valid.

What she made it seem like with her limited display, was that this was perpetuating violence against women from their perspective lover... Which in reality it was simply a tradgedy, perhaps overplayed yes, but not to be mistaken with the man being intentionally violent towards the women he loves.

Remember I was only referring to how she suggests something that is not real to the scenario in question.

Was this game fridging a character to an extent? I wouldn't disagree with you.

Was it saying men should act violent against women? No I would say that it was an act of mercy even if the trope led to it.

The difference between me, and Anita, is that with Anita yiu have an entirely different outlook. With me, you came to your own and I would argue, while not a bad trope in itself, something of an overused trope.

IE she is deliberately misrepresenting her cherry picked facts to make the audience come to an already decided conclusion.

Most of us agree here that sexism in games are rampant. We find her misrepresenting and manipulative displays harmful to the conversation however.

And it pains us more people take her seriouslt in her misrepresented conclusions.

To put it into perspective. Your conclusion was better then Anita's. And all I did was paint the picture for you to come up with a conclusion.

After typing that up, I re-watched her second Damsel video (and read an interview she did with IGN).

I'm pretty sure her conclusion is pretty close to my own, although she hits the "violence against women" angle a lot harder than I do. With only a few exceptions, she doesn't seem to be calling out any particular example as bad. She even points out that most of these examples stand up within the in-game logic.

The problem is more with the repetition of the idea at the expense of presenting more interesting female characters. There seems to be an attempt to drive this home with spamming various character's motivations to show how similar they are to one another. After his wife is brutally murdered he must save his daughter, after his wife is brutally murdered he must save his daughter, after his wife is brutally murdered he must save his daughter, etc.

I approach the problem from an entertainment perspective. I find this type of thing boring and I think I naturally filter out most of the damsel games for exactly this reason. Infamous is a game I played which was briefly mentioned in her video and the damsel moment comes fairly deep in the game after setting up the character. And while this isn't the most original of plot developments, I was at least invested in the character.

Tb00t makes a big deal about the motivation being love and therein lies the problem with so much of the trope. Love has nothing to do with it... at least not the only love which counts in these circumstances, my love. Putting a non-entity of a character in jeopardy because the game tells me I love her is not love. Making me care about this character and making her absence hurt is love. I just got through playing the excellent prologue of The Last Of Us for the second time and it's a thing of beauty. By putting us in the shoes of a doomed character, I bonded with her in a way I don't normally do in these kinds of games. If you see this kind of thing coming, you do mentally distance yourself to protect yourself, but The Last of Us used a nasty little trick to tear through my defenses and the character's death is a gut-punch.

Whereas Prey (another example I played before) mostly relies on me thinking the character model is pretty. I didn't feel anything for my virtual girlfriend. There was no love here. The writing simply wasn't good enough to make me love her. I'm tempted to say the same about Prototype 2, but the writing was so awful in that I don't remember anything apart from an Angry Black Man fucking shit up for some reason or other... turns out it was because his non-entity of a wife was brutally murdered and his non-entity of a daughter was kidnapped. I felt such a complete lack of love that I totally forgot either character existed.

Meanwhile Joss Whedon pulled this trick practically every week on Buffy where for the first few seasons he made Willow the regular damsel in distress, which worked every single time because we all loved Willow. When he tried the same trick with Dawn, a character most people found annoying, the trick stopped working and the constant jeopardy was a source of annoyance.

Long story slightly shorter, I use her thoughts as a jumping off point for my own. I can see her frustration and it mirrors a lot of my own frustrations. I wouldn't phrase it as she does because violence against women isn't exactly something I dwell upon... but the gaping void of interesting female characters in so many games is something I didn't need her to point out. The fridging of interesting female characters to making boring male characters slightly less boring did need to be pointed out to me, but often I was aware something wrong was in the air but just couldn't locate the source of the smell.

Alright, let's give you a valid shot then.

A lack of interesting female characters eh?

Alright then. Top of my head.

Samus.
Zelda.
Lara Croft.
Clementine.
Midna.
Tifa
Aeris
Lightning (according to some)
Agnes from Bravely default.

Now, admittedly, not all of these are playable characters, and it is only a list of 9.

Can you name 9 truly, and legitimately interesting male characters whom outside of two characters for my list had representation this last year and can still be called interesting characters? I think you'll find far more interesting female characters to male characters when giving it some thought.

I would play the game slightly differently.

Such as, name an interesting female character from the studio Rockstar.

I'm waiting...

I think the closest is Marston's wife in Red Dead Redemption, who in her all-too-brief appearances seems the type of feisty woman we should see more of in the RDR Universe. So, of course, she's left at home.

Whereas I could ask "name an interesting female character in the Saints Row series" and come back with a dozen entries.

We're talking about two very similar games, but one embraces the idea of interesting female characters and the other seems to go out of their way to avoid anything even potentially interesting. Why is it the bigger studio comes up so short on this?

Assassin's Creed is pretty good at it, Dishonored was crap. Borderlands 2 is good at it, Mafia 2 was not.

It's not about the complete absence, it's about how many games don't put any effort at all into it. Granted, many of the companies have a problem creating *any* interesting characters in their games (see Watch Dogs and Prototype, both really fun games with zero personality), so it might just be a writing problem and not a sexism problem.

But generally speaking good minority or female characters tend to come about by the writers making a point of creating some. When Doctor Who producer, Russell T. Davies, took Primeval to task for not having any minority actors in their main cast, the reaction from Primeval was "oh, my god, you're right" and they made immediate steps to correct that oversight. When Doctor Who producer, Stephen Moffat, was called out for not including any gay characters in his first season as show runner, his reaction of "oh, my god, you're right" and made a point of putting gay characters into the show. And I wish a series like Grand Theft Auto would do the same. We're saying "you're not including any interesting female criminals" and there response seems to be "look, you can touch the strippers now."

And fuck them for that. In a video game environment where Shandi and Tiny Tina exist, that's just lazy... and I hate lazy writing.

 

[Lightknight]

Look, it's quite simple, Anita claims that games change your beliefs by making you more sexist. Your beliefs are what cause your actions so the implication is easily that games cause sexist actions. It's axiomatic. However, while we can prove that beliefs cause actions, Anita has yet to show that video games actually make people sexist. I never once thought I was saving Princess Peach from a castle because all women are weak. I thought, "She got captured, ergo she should be saved." If nothing else, that made me want to help women who are in trouble rather than to make some wild assumption that all women are incompetent. So she has yet to prove that the damsel in distress motif is actually bad in any way. A person should want to save a person who is captured and I'm sorry, but the person in trouble is going to have a lack of agency or they wouldn't need someone to save them.

Jack Thompson believes games make you more violent or prone to violence.

Both aren't as far removed as you'd think. If one is true, then both are likely to be and vice versa. The original post is not a bad argument. It's correct. Jack Thompson was the Jack Thompson of video games on violence and Anita is the Jack Thompson of video game on sexism. However, Jack was trying to get those games legally banned which is a huge step above Anita's mere argument against. I will point out that Anita is also against game violence.

I don't know why Anita is considered particularly relevant to the gaming sphere. We know from that pre-kickstarter video that she did not, in fact, play games and was not a fan of games. She created a kickstarter to do a piece on sexism in gaming and THEN went on to play games to prove her point. So, unless things have changed then she isn't one of us. Not because she's a girl but because she doesn't play games out of love for them.

But kudos to her on finding a way to make money by lying about her history and making stuff up.

 

[carnex]

I'm pretty sure we did this dance before, but where I disagree with you is you declaring Feminism has any singular view.

Feminism is an extremely fractured world-view which is bonded insofar as they all want the same basic outcome, equality between the sexes.

Feminist are what you said here. Feminism as a movement can be only juged by it's actions, public personas and results of both. I'm dealing with results and actions as personas are less reliable and consistent source.

So while you say Feminists declare that only men can rape women and it's impossible for the opposite to occur, the feminist who link feminists articles on my Facebook feed completely disagree with you. The prevalence of female-on-male sexual assault was only brought to my attention by the effort of feminists.

The gender gap in colleges in favor of women was only brought to my attention by the efforts of feminists and the only people I've ever seen trying to address the imbalance and get more men into college are feminists.

What you wrote here is frankly insulting. Washing away efforts of so many people and pushing it under a rug of a ieology they oppose if seriously vile behavior. Read up on movement you support. It's not for laughs and giggles that so many egalitarian movements sprouted up in last two decades.

And I've seen more than a few feminist commentaries on the problem of false rape accusations. They're seen as a problem, although they view rape as a more serious problem... and one backed up by FBI figures. If 1 in 10 rape accusations are false, then we need to address that, but real rape accusations are 9 in 10... and under-reported. As a man, I'm concerned about false rape accusations and protect myself as best I can (such as, don't have sex with a girl who is barely conscious... in this situation you're the one in the mini-skirt walking down Please Rape Me Alley), but I can't help but notice that the problem of rape is far more pervasive than the problem of false rape accusations. They're both important, but the numbers put rape as the more pressing concern.

This is Identity Politics so of course they pay very close attention to the problems which most affect them, but there's all sorts of different factions preaching very different things. Joanna Angel is a decidedly pro-sex feminist, while other factions want to outlaw her job as a porn actress. Feminism allows for both points of view, because it's not the slightest bit regimented. We can't say Joanna Angel is a Feminist, Feminist hate porn, therefore Joanna Angel can't possible be a porn actress and a Feminist... because logic will only make you wrong with authority in this circumstance.

I want to be cheeky and say "There Is No Logic In Feminism", but I mean there's no unifying logic to it. It's a DIY philosophy with lots of people believing completely different and contradictory things with no real attempt to make everyone toe the party line (although various factions do attempt to guilt the others). Feminist are famous for arguing among themselves. There's no controlling authority.

I understand that feminism has self proclaimed membership and that that leads to many unwanted individuals in movement. However, you can't wash those away based on that problem when individuals with unacceptable beliefs and behavior are spearheading the movement.

It's not a problem when one is accused of rape when that person has sex with barely conscious partner. But it is a problem when that same rule allows for regular drinker to successfully accuse partner of rape after downing 3 or 4 shots of strong spirit. Or when same rule accuses one sex when both partners are hammered out of their minds. Or when mere accusation ruins someones career, not jut by reputation, but by decision of body that should never be allowed to make a standing judgment on a topic.

Women still have problems in this world. But don't blame it on some fabricated bogyman and dont take other people's work to make someone else look good and grand.

 

[Netrigan]

Although I should make the effort to play your game. I can't really be bothered to figure out release dates, so I'll go back a few years with major franchises.

I found no absence of interesting male characters in Saints Row and Borderlands 2. Handsome Jack was one of the most awesome villains of the last decade. Pierce is set up as a joke in Saints Row but ends up being far more interesting than two of the leads in GTA V. Truth be told, I like Pierce more than fan-favorite Johnny Gat.

Speaking of GTA V, Trevor was all kinds of awesome even if the other two were boring. There's quite a few colorful and interesting male NPS littering the series. GTA has never had a problem coming up with colorful criminals to fill their cities.

While there's a few boring guys in the Mass Effect Universe (even MaleSheppard is the weak sister to FemShep), there's also no shortage of awesome ones. Miranda and Jacob aside, there's not a lot of mis-fires in that game on either side of the gender line.

I'm barely into The Last of Us and I've been sucked in by just about every character, save for the angry white woman who is your partner after the 20 year jump. Her only real sin is being a bit too one-note. She's not boring exactly, just not as interesting as everyone else.

Just played Uncharted 1 (4 is upcoming, so a current IP) and Nathan Drake remains an entertaining protagonist. There's even some depth to the character in 2 & 3. Sully is a cliche personified, but he's always fun to watch. The boring love interest isn't even that boring, just not nearly as interesting as the British woman introduced in the second game.

I keep shifting the focus onto good writing versus lazy writing (I'm only dipping my toe in the sexism thing because of the topic being discussed). Good writers tend to spread the love around because they're actively combating their own lazy tendencies. Rockstar is one of the few studios which I put forward as having some truly excellent writing (as long as we don't mention Max Payne 3), but sees to be at a complete loss as to how to craft a properly interesting or entertaining female character. Infamous tends to do better with its male characters, but I see effort on the female side and don't discount it.

Then there's Halo in which the only interesting character in the entire series is a female AI, so I guess women are winning in that series

 

[Netrigan]

I'm pretty sure we did this dance before, but where I disagree with you is you declaring Feminism has any singular view.

Feminism is an extremely fractured world-view which is bonded insofar as they all want the same basic outcome, equality between the sexes.

Feminist are what you said here. Feminism as a movement can be only juged by it's actions, public personas and results of both. I'm dealing with results and actions as personas are less reliable and consistent source.

So while you say Feminists declare that only men can rape women and it's impossible for the opposite to occur, the feminist who link feminists articles on my Facebook feed completely disagree with you. The prevalence of female-on-male sexual assault was only brought to my attention by the effort of feminists.

The gender gap in colleges in favor of women was only brought to my attention by the efforts of feminists and the only people I've ever seen trying to address the imbalance and get more men into college are feminists.

What you wrote here is frankly insulting. Washing away efforts of so many people and pushing it under a rug of a ieology they oppose if seriously vile behavior. Read up on movement you support. It's not for laughs and giggles that so many egalitarian movements sprouted up in last two decades.

And I've seen more than a few feminist commentaries on the problem of false rape accusations. They're seen as a problem, although they view rape as a more serious problem... and one backed up by FBI figures. If 1 in 10 rape accusations are false, then we need to address that, but real rape accusations are 9 in 10... and under-reported. As a man, I'm concerned about false rape accusations and protect myself as best I can (such as, don't have sex with a girl who is barely conscious... in this situation you're the one in the mini-skirt walking down Please Rape Me Alley), but I can't help but notice that the problem of rape is far more pervasive than the problem of false rape accusations. They're both important, but the numbers put rape as the more pressing concern.

This is Identity Politics so of course they pay very close attention to the problems which most affect them, but there's all sorts of different factions preaching very different things. Joanna Angel is a decidedly pro-sex feminist, while other factions want to outlaw her job as a porn actress. Feminism allows for both points of view, because it's not the slightest bit regimented. We can't say Joanna Angel is a Feminist, Feminist hate porn, therefore Joanna Angel can't possible be a porn actress and a Feminist... because logic will only make you wrong with authority in this circumstance.

I want to be cheeky and say "There Is No Logic In Feminism", but I mean there's no unifying logic to it. It's a DIY philosophy with lots of people believing completely different and contradictory things with no real attempt to make everyone toe the party line (although various factions do attempt to guilt the others). Feminist are famous for arguing among themselves. There's no controlling authority.

I understand that feminism has self proclaimed membership and that that leads to many unwanted individuals in movement. However, you can't wash those away based on that problem when individuals with unacceptable beliefs and behavior are spearheading the movement.

It's not a problem when one is accused of rape when that person has sex with barely conscious partner. But it is a problem when that same rule allows for regular drinker to successfully accuse partner of rape after downing 3 or 4 shots of strong spirit. Or when same rule accuses one sex when both partners are hammered out of their minds. Or when mere accusation ruins someones career, not jut by reputation, but by decision of body that should never be allowed to make a standing judgment on a topic.

Women still have problems in this world. But don't blame it on some fabricated bogyman and dont take other people's work to make someone else look good and grand.

That's thing. No one is spear-heading the movement. There's no Central HQ. There is no leadership.

There's just factions... lots and lots and lots of factions who spend most of their time arguing with one another over everything.

Kind of like us endlessly debating whether Halo or Call Of Duty are the true Anti-Christ. No one is driving the bus. It's just a bunch of people moving in broadly the same direction.

 

[carnex]

That's thing. No one is spear-heading the movement. There's no Central HQ. There is no leadership.

There's just factions... lots and lots and lots of factions who spend most of their time arguing with one another over everything.

Kind of like us endlessly debating whether Halo or Call Of Duty are the true Anti-Christ. No one is driving the bus. It's just a bunch of people moving in broadly the same direction.

When I said "spearheading" i meant who's opinions and actions result in public rules, laws an other tangible results. As I said I can only judge by actions and results but I have pulled this off topic enough.

We can all sway that we need better narrative in games that claim to have good narrative. When MGS series is taken as a great example of narrative quality in medium you know it's a sad affair.

What we need to stop i plastering false or at least unproven accusations as serious problems medium causes in people.

P.S. Elena in Uncharted is boring only because it's one realistic character in whole series. Ok, realistic compared to overblown almost to parody characters of rest of the cast. And I love them all to death

 

[gargantual]

SNIPITY-SNIP

Not a superhero comic reader (Yuck...) but last I checked it was called "Green Lantern", not "Fridge Girl. Oh, and that tit in the green tights...".

But you know what? Gonna write a story. No plot developed yet, but it will feature ladies getting done in, bodies from floor to ceiling and a fridge when there's no more room, if I can fit that in somewhere. That one is to offend you, because you look for things to be offended by. I like that. The second feature will be gorgeous gogo-boys dancing in their underwear for the sexual gratification of other men (Note to self: Research Sebastian Young, thoroughly...<3). That one is just to confuse you.

How I'll get those two to fit together in a lovely little package will eat at me for days...

So in the scene you just described, I totally see the context you're seeing... but I can also see the frustration many women have with yet another female character being thrown on the fire for male character development.

Those frustrated women are mostly middle-class with very few problems that aren't emotional. Maybe folks can't live without a few "problems" in their lives. Maybe if they join a cause, regardless of how irrational, they think it gives them a personality. Maybe it's hard to sympathise with folks who think this is a "problem" to be concerned about. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

We exist on a board where people seem to think game endings, DLC, Call of Duty multi-player, and Anita Sarkeesian are "problems". This kind of thing ranks quite a bit higher on the list of First World Problems than just about everything which is regularly complained about here.

And perhaps you missed a bit of the context of my remarks. Why should an *ahem* interesting female character be thrown under the bus for the service of a *ahem* boring male character.

Since I love tossing out examples of the greater pop culture, the somewhat disappointing SyFy show and MMO, Defiance. The show isn't bad, with a sizable cast of characters who grow more interesting with every passing episode. It's the kind of show that promises to be quite good once they figure out how all the pieces fit together. The biggest exception to the rule would happen to be the boring white guy "rogue with a heart of gold" character at its center. The show has a huge Boring White Guy Problem and he's the star of the show.

Boring is boring. I'm a guy and I get annoyed when really interesting female characters get tossed aside to try to develop these lost causes. If they start offing properly good characters in a feeble attempt to make him slightly less boring, I'll probably move on.

As for Green Lantern, fridging the only decent character in the book was the latest (and for me, final) sin in a desperate attempt to make the book edgy. Just a few issues earlier they made the beloved previous star of the book evil and killed off dozens of popular characters... all in the service of setting up this lame Gen X Spider-Man wannabe who had to get his own, edgy "with great responsibility..." moment. Oh, woe with me, for my inability to be a proper super-hero has cost me my one and only decent supporting character... I shall declare vengeance on the man who killed her (a lame-o reject from the cancelled Captain Atom book, because we suck that hard) but at the last minute I shall wuss out and let the guy live because we can't be *that* edgy.

So, yeah, I'm kind of pissed they killed her off... and Kilowog... and fucked up Guy Gardner's on-going book... and wiped out the Guardians... and set off an entire fanbase whining about the shockingly stupid treatment of Hal Jordan... and just about everything else that particular writer did either on his own or at the behest of DC Editorial which couldn't find it with both hands, a flash-light, and a detailed map of their backside.

Back to our First World Problems.

One of the reasons I asked for examples was because I try to understand why people are expressing frustration. I just rewatched her second Damsels video and what came out loud and clear was her on-going frustration with a lack of interesting female characters in most of these games (a frustration I very much share). In an interview, she expanded her thoughts on Dishonored where she talked about how they set up a potentially interesting character with the Empress... then killed her off to start the story of a male character. She enjoyed the game, is hoping for a sequel, but her experience with the game is tinged with disappointment as there's no attempt to craft any interesting female characters other than the dead one.

So the problem isn't so much with Gears of War having Dom mercy killing his wife, but with women being relegated to a very thin strip of a male character's often-repeated story arc. Female characters are often important only in their absence, rather than their active participation within the narrative. That they can complete their duties while dead is offered up as proof of how limited their contribution is.

Let me talk to you about one of my favorite game series. Metroid.

So you can imagine I was pissed with other M right?

Well... Not so much.

You see unlike other so called Metroid fans here or so claimed, I knew the backstory of her parents, and Ridley before other M. It was portrayed in a comic series in Nintendo Power back when Super Metroid came out.

So she was raised by the Fedaration, under a figure she regarded as a father. And people said "they destroyed our lifeless non existent character who only served to be a woman in essentially every former game!" When really the story had been layed out nearly a decade before to be exactly like that.

What people whined about was that Samus didn't live up to their ideals. Ignoring that she was still the same badass but had incorporated a storyline already written for her nearly a decade before hand.

The US audience essentially refused to see the character I already knew was there because of my love for the franchise.

They wanted to make Samus their own ideal, as opposed to the ideal Nintendo wrote for her.

She had her vulnerabilities, her weaknesses like all good characters have. But she was still strong, able, and came out on top at the end of the day despite all odds.

But she wasn't good enough because she didn't meet their ideals.

In the least she wasn't the generic hardass asshole male character every other character is and actually seemed potentially human, but hell didn't meet their standards.

I am bitter to the Anti other M communities to this day, for being so damned blind to the actual history of Samus.

Not a Metroid fan, but I am a bit aware of the controversy over attempts to flesh out her character.

I think this is more a case of Fan Expectation than anything else. If you leave something hanging out there long enough, fans claim it and you run afoul of their expectations... every single time.

If Valve decided to actually develop Gordon Freeman's personality instead of just making him a mute crowbar, then you can bet that fans would be outraged that said personality is a complete betrayal of everything Gordon stands for... which, in reality, is absolutely nothing.

Samus strikes me as another similarly empty vessel protagonist which fans filled with their own experience, and nothing could possibly compare to that.

But I should point out, this isn't what I'm talking about when I talk about interesting characters. Half-Life is beloved because the game filled the universe (well, starting with 2) with a bunch of interesting characters, most importantly your female side-kick whose life does not revolve around Gordon Freeman. You're an important part of her life, but she's got all sorts of stuff going on and you're frequently drafted to take care of her personal business.

Tf00t made his example with double dragon saying you had 7 seconds to introduce a character as someone needing protection. Perhaps were not as limited by technology nowadays, but DiD depends on the project and its context to everything else. Not that one can't use other brief symbolic indicators to frame the importance of a character outside of being damseled but i'd say it depends on the circumstances.

As for samus, there are things you can imply about a character, even if they don't appear to be completely developed. Thats why so many fans of Metroid were averse to and dissapointed by Other M, because Samus's earlier depiction suggested a character with adventurous spirit and independence.

Another example of making a character significant within shorter frames of time (it certainly has been demonstrated before). Think about Health Ledger's Joker as opposed to Jack Nicholson's in Batman. You didn't get the origin story and buildup of becoming the Joker in the Dark Knight, but his character was fully realized in his mannerisms. where a viewer could easily infer about what fueled his nature. His tellings of his abuse when he held the knife to Rachel, his misanthropy and spite for the world, his looking to have a death wish, his dismissive looking away from people when he killed them, and his goal to pit society against each other and bring down their ideals (misery loves company). All of those are tell tale signs, that don't take as long to employ as a series of dedicated sympathetic character build up scenes.


The Last of Us and Buffy have the advantage of being more long form media. So it depends on how the story is framed. Is it a simple story that takes off and focuses on action and chase? Or is it a more in depth character drama? Depends on the plot and how the creator is framing desperation. Any character can be made to feel sympathetic for when they are lost or in distress. Such as when Tifa had to rescue Cloud, but it takes character development to do so.

So it like...should the rule universally be for popular fiction that no one gets kidnapped or in distress until we've been given a good few hour in to sympathize with them? Or maybe how everyone handles distress should evenly show people fighting for agency or submitting based on their personality, and not their appearance.

What if they demonstrate intelligence, agency, control and subversion despite their captivity like Holly McClane in Die Hard? I think What should be improved or more honed in upon with character in games is not defining character simply by their circumstances, but what they do, or are likely to do while in those circumstances.

 

[Netrigan]

That's thing. No one is spear-heading the movement. There's no Central HQ. There is no leadership.

There's just factions... lots and lots and lots of factions who spend most of their time arguing with one another over everything.

Kind of like us endlessly debating whether Halo or Call Of Duty are the true Anti-Christ. No one is driving the bus. It's just a bunch of people moving in broadly the same direction.

When I said "spearheading" i meant who's opinions and actions result in public rules, laws an other tangible results. As I said I can only judge by actions and results but I have pulled this off topic enough.

I see a chaotic system where certain ideas gain traction while others do not. Which is pretty much the political system in a nutshell. Certain people are better at pushing agendas than others, so Bill Clinton gets his way quite often while Al Gore doesn't. Women really got behind breast cancer and it's currently one of the best funded cancer research avenues (and that's still woefully inadequate), while prostate cancer which affects the age group of law makers at virtually identical rates is ignored by the same law-makers.

Politics is just filled with those sorts of idiocies.

We can all sway that we need better narrative in games that claim to have good narrative. When MGS series is taken as a great example of narrative quality in medium you know it's a sad affair.

What we need to stop i plastering false or at least unproven accusations as serious problems medium causes in people.

P.S. Elena in Uncharted is boring only because it's one realistic character in whole series. Ok, realistic compared to overblown almost to parody characters of rest of the cast. And I love them all to death

In total agreement here. I was enjoying the story of Uncharted 1, but it's kind of sad that this is considered good. If it were a movie, it would be direct-to-DVD fare. Thankfully they get a lot better.

I'm not sure if I'd call Elena realistic even within the context of Uncharted. Her ability to sneak in heavily fortified locations and get video taped evidence of everything was far in excess of Drake's ability to flail his arms comically while jumping

Even more amusing, she's the one pushing the plot through most of the first game. He wants to go home and she's the one saying "fuck that, I'm going in whether you're coming with me or not."

I think I call her boring because they're so clearly incompatible. She's a fun one-shot love-interest, but I don't see these two wanting to spend time together outside of this one adventure. Her lack of reason to exist in subsequent games makes me want to see her somewhere else.

 

[Netrigan]

SNIPITY-SNIP

Not a superhero comic reader (Yuck...) but last I checked it was called "Green Lantern", not "Fridge Girl. Oh, and that tit in the green tights...".

But you know what? Gonna write a story. No plot developed yet, but it will feature ladies getting done in, bodies from floor to ceiling and a fridge when there's no more room, if I can fit that in somewhere. That one is to offend you, because you look for things to be offended by. I like that. The second feature will be gorgeous gogo-boys dancing in their underwear for the sexual gratification of other men (Note to self: Research Sebastian Young, thoroughly...<3). That one is just to confuse you.

How I'll get those two to fit together in a lovely little package will eat at me for days...

So in the scene you just described, I totally see the context you're seeing... but I can also see the frustration many women have with yet another female character being thrown on the fire for male character development.

Those frustrated women are mostly middle-class with very few problems that aren't emotional. Maybe folks can't live without a few "problems" in their lives. Maybe if they join a cause, regardless of how irrational, they think it gives them a personality. Maybe it's hard to sympathise with folks who think this is a "problem" to be concerned about. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

We exist on a board where people seem to think game endings, DLC, Call of Duty multi-player, and Anita Sarkeesian are "problems". This kind of thing ranks quite a bit higher on the list of First World Problems than just about everything which is regularly complained about here.

And perhaps you missed a bit of the context of my remarks. Why should an *ahem* interesting female character be thrown under the bus for the service of a *ahem* boring male character.

Since I love tossing out examples of the greater pop culture, the somewhat disappointing SyFy show and MMO, Defiance. The show isn't bad, with a sizable cast of characters who grow more interesting with every passing episode. It's the kind of show that promises to be quite good once they figure out how all the pieces fit together. The biggest exception to the rule would happen to be the boring white guy "rogue with a heart of gold" character at its center. The show has a huge Boring White Guy Problem and he's the star of the show.

Boring is boring. I'm a guy and I get annoyed when really interesting female characters get tossed aside to try to develop these lost causes. If they start offing properly good characters in a feeble attempt to make him slightly less boring, I'll probably move on.

As for Green Lantern, fridging the only decent character in the book was the latest (and for me, final) sin in a desperate attempt to make the book edgy. Just a few issues earlier they made the beloved previous star of the book evil and killed off dozens of popular characters... all in the service of setting up this lame Gen X Spider-Man wannabe who had to get his own, edgy "with great responsibility..." moment. Oh, woe with me, for my inability to be a proper super-hero has cost me my one and only decent supporting character... I shall declare vengeance on the man who killed her (a lame-o reject from the cancelled Captain Atom book, because we suck that hard) but at the last minute I shall wuss out and let the guy live because we can't be *that* edgy.

So, yeah, I'm kind of pissed they killed her off... and Kilowog... and fucked up Guy Gardner's on-going book... and wiped out the Guardians... and set off an entire fanbase whining about the shockingly stupid treatment of Hal Jordan... and just about everything else that particular writer did either on his own or at the behest of DC Editorial which couldn't find it with both hands, a flash-light, and a detailed map of their backside.

Back to our First World Problems.

One of the reasons I asked for examples was because I try to understand why people are expressing frustration. I just rewatched her second Damsels video and what came out loud and clear was her on-going frustration with a lack of interesting female characters in most of these games (a frustration I very much share). In an interview, she expanded her thoughts on Dishonored where she talked about how they set up a potentially interesting character with the Empress... then killed her off to start the story of a male character. She enjoyed the game, is hoping for a sequel, but her experience with the game is tinged with disappointment as there's no attempt to craft any interesting female characters other than the dead one.

So the problem isn't so much with Gears of War having Dom mercy killing his wife, but with women being relegated to a very thin strip of a male character's often-repeated story arc. Female characters are often important only in their absence, rather than their active participation within the narrative. That they can complete their duties while dead is offered up as proof of how limited their contribution is.

Let me talk to you about one of my favorite game series. Metroid.

So you can imagine I was pissed with other M right?

Well... Not so much.

You see unlike other so called Metroid fans here or so claimed, I knew the backstory of her parents, and Ridley before other M. It was portrayed in a comic series in Nintendo Power back when Super Metroid came out.

So she was raised by the Fedaration, under a figure she regarded as a father. And people said "they destroyed our lifeless non existent character who only served to be a woman in essentially every former game!" When really the story had been layed out nearly a decade before to be exactly like that.

What people whined about was that Samus didn't live up to their ideals. Ignoring that she was still the same badass but had incorporated a storyline already written for her nearly a decade before hand.

The US audience essentially refused to see the character I already knew was there because of my love for the franchise.

They wanted to make Samus their own ideal, as opposed to the ideal Nintendo wrote for her.

She had her vulnerabilities, her weaknesses like all good characters have. But she was still strong, able, and came out on top at the end of the day despite all odds.

But she wasn't good enough because she didn't meet their ideals.

In the least she wasn't the generic hardass asshole male character every other character is and actually seemed potentially human, but hell didn't meet their standards.

I am bitter to the Anti other M communities to this day, for being so damned blind to the actual history of Samus.

Not a Metroid fan, but I am a bit aware of the controversy over attempts to flesh out her character.

I think this is more a case of Fan Expectation than anything else. If you leave something hanging out there long enough, fans claim it and you run afoul of their expectations... every single time.

If Valve decided to actually develop Gordon Freeman's personality instead of just making him a mute crowbar, then you can bet that fans would be outraged that said personality is a complete betrayal of everything Gordon stands for... which, in reality, is absolutely nothing.

Samus strikes me as another similarly empty vessel protagonist which fans filled with their own experience, and nothing could possibly compare to that.

But I should point out, this isn't what I'm talking about when I talk about interesting characters. Half-Life is beloved because the game filled the universe (well, starting with 2) with a bunch of interesting characters, most importantly your female side-kick whose life does not revolve around Gordon Freeman. You're an important part of her life, but she's got all sorts of stuff going on and you're frequently drafted to take care of her personal business.

Tf00t made his example with double dragon saying you had 7 seconds to introduce a character as someone needing protection. Perhaps were not as limited by technology nowadays, but DiD depends on the project and its context to everything else. Not that one can't use other brief symbolic indicators to frame the importance of a character outside of being damseled but i'd say it depends on the circumstances.

As for samus, there are things you can imply about a character, even if they don't appear to be completely developed. Thats why so many fans of Metroid were averse to and dissapointed by Other M, because Samus's earlier depiction suggested a character with adventurous spirit and independence.

Another example of making a character significant within shorter frames of time (it certainly has been demonstrated before). Think about Health Ledger's Joker as opposed to Jack Nicholson's in Batman. You didn't get the origin story and buildup of becoming the Joker in the Dark Knight, but his character was fully realized in his mannerisms. where a viewer could easily infer about what fueled his nature. His tellings of his abuse when he held the knife to Rachel, his misanthropy and spite for the world, his looking to have a death wish, his dismissive looking away from people when he killed them, and his goal to pit society against each other and bring down their ideals (misery loves company). All of those are tell tale signs, that don't take as long to employ as a series of dedicated sympathetic character build up scenes.


The Last of Us and Buffy have the advantage of being more long form media. So it depends on how the story is framed. Is it a simple story that takes off and focuses on action and chase? Or is it a more in depth character drama? Depends on the plot and how the creator is framing desperation. Any character can be made to feel sympathetic for when they are lost or in distress. Such as when Tifa had to rescue Cloud, but it takes character development to do so.

So it like...should the rule universally be for popular fiction that no one gets kidnapped or in distress until we've been given a good few hour in to sympathize with them? Or maybe how everyone handles distress should evenly show people fighting for agency or submitting based on their personality, and not their appearance.

What if they demonstrate intelligence, agency, control and subversion despite their captivity like Holly McClane in Die Hard? I think What should be improved or more honed in upon with character in games is not defining character simply by their circumstances, but what they do, or are likely to do while in those circumstances.

I really should pair this quote down to the relevant bit, but lazy

I mentioned The Last of Us for its ability to get me completely committed to a doomed character in a very small amount of time. I'm absolutely floored by the connection I had with his daughter in the prologue. That has never happened before. I spent a handful of minutes playing as this character and I just fell in love with her.

It probably wouldn't work as well in a movie, because her character is pretty thin; but simply putting me in control of her for a short time created a bond. It's a great writing trick only video games can use.

I only just met Ellie, so I've not made any connection with her. I just got the game and need to run some errands later and am trying hard not to get sucked in before those are completed... or else they're mysteriously not be completed while I dedicate my day to this game.

I really don't want to get into older games where story was an after-thought at best. My judgment starts with fully acted cutscenes. A game like Prey spent more than enough time with the girlfriend to get me to care... it just failed to draw me in.