Naitaka wrote...
And likewise isn't racism, religious opression and poverty also very real in our world?
First, I second what Ladybright said so well, but let me try to put it in my own words as well.
Again: mages and elves and Andrastians and qunari are
not real. They are artificial constructions that serve as vessels for (among other things) the explorations of certain prejudice. Women
are real. The degredation -- verbal, cultural, sexual or otherwise -- of women in games has immediate and direct equivalents in the real world.
Elves? They have no direct equilvent in the real world. No one here is an elf. "Elf" is not a real-world insult for hated, unwanted or deemed-worthless people based on the hatred of real elves. You can see the elves as a metaphor for all sorts of atrocious things: antisemitism, Apartheid, red, black, brown, yellow or even white victims of colonialization and imperialism. But they remain a metaphor. Their treatment does not directly tell any player that their kind of people are subhuman trash in this setting and that there is no way they can escape that.
Where do you draw the line between what is detached enough as to not appear offensive and what is not when it's largely based on each individual's opinion? Is it then better to restrict entertainment to only what's considered politically correct in accordance to modern value?
I have said where I draw the line and why. And as for "politically correct" ... how many times do the people who call for the "realistic" debasement of women and the "realistic" persecution of homosexuals also think a bit further and call for the kind of realism that would extend to the players/characters who are used to their RL priveleges and securites? Even a straight white human male would be put in his place pretty damn fast in a "proper, realistic, dark, gritty medieval" world unless he was high-ranking nobility in his own land. No more of that ever-popular mouthing-off-to-authority-without-any-consequences. No more striking out to do your own thing without a care for laws, customs, tolls, and obligation to one's liege lord. No more rising from dirt to become the untouchable hero who can do whatever he bloody well wants because he's just so incredibly awesome and the only one who can save the world, so no one can cross him and live. Befouled water, festering wounds, veneral diseases, starvation, frostbite, loss of limbs in combat, brutal punishment, mutilation and execution if you so much as breathe wrong at the wrong person or if the guy in power just wants a random victim.
And no option to reload, of course. Harcore mode is the only mode.
THAT would be realism. And I don't doubt that some would even find it fun. But until that level of realism is implemented, no one can tell me that the desire for women to be treated with roughly the same dignity and respect as men (with some wriggle room both ways) is unrealistic or an imposition of political correctness.
Modifié par Korva, 13 janvier 2011 - 12:26 .
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