The fact that Bioware is exceedingly more progressive than much of the video game industry does not make it exempt from criticism. We see that from this very thread. If they wrote something that fits a harmful trope, they wrote something that fits a harmful trope--even if there is plenty of context within the lore that it fits into. That doesn't make Origins a horrible game, and it doesn't make Bioware a horrible company. It means they wrote one particular thing that is worth examining.
Bioware, I think, tries very hard to be aware of the tropes and beliefs with which they are dealing and the type of entertainment culture present in this society. That's laudable. But beyond that, there are a lot of issues that Bioware really struggles with, particularly in their portrayal of women. In particular, I think Bioware actually struggles with featuring women.
Let's take the example what we might call powerful figures in Thedas. We have lots of supposedly powerful female figures. Meredith. Anora. The Divines. Grand Cleric Elthina. They all tend to be part of the background to the story, not the featured aspect of the plot. That's a problem.
A different example relates to the actual attitudes within Thedas. In theory, Thedas is supposed to have a proper equal and progressive attitude toward gender. But often we see that it doesn't. Sometimes that bleeds it in from general IRL tropes, and that's really hard to fix without more female writers and designers. As guys, there's just a lack of lived experience that makes it hard to appreciate the impact of certain design choices. To use myself as an example, I didn't get why catcalls are so disgusting (though I always knew they were) until I walked down the street with my best friend and she was harassed by construction workers, guys just driving buy, etc. The other part is dialogue, e.g. the "I'm braver than that and I'm a woman" line.
I generally avoid giving my opinion about FF, but I feel this is a safe thread to do it . I'll be honest: I don't like Ms. Sarkessian very much. I think she jumps way too far in her videos, and I find myself disagreeing with her more often than not. I also loathe how she uses the "Women don't know better," elements in her speech, which comes up a lot. I also know that she doesn't play most of the game she reviews, which would make me lose respect for her regardless of gender.
I think that Anita Sarkessian struggles a great deal with explaining the actual significance of a feminist critique of media to an unfamiliar audience. That's not to say that explaining the problem better to these frothing at the mouth lunatics would change things even remotely. I'm sure that regardless of her efforts the response would be the same, because nerd culture in a lot of ways is a disgusting hive of sexism and entitlement.
Still, I can't help but respect her for her willingness to still be a public figure despite the insane, mind-boggling level of harassment she's been subject to for speaking up.
It's not an especially great feminist critique of video games, but the attacks against her are all based on the fact that she dared to make a feminist critique of video games. And that more than anything shows what a hive of troglodyte sexist beliefs the industry has accumulated.
Gamergate is worse and something I'm glad that Ms. Sarkessian isn't part of. I made the mistake of looking into the details of that, and I saw some of the tweets as well.
Gamergate makes me physically ill.
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You guys are a glimmer of joy in a dark place.
