9318 réponses à ce sujet

[RevilFox]

To be fair, there was the guy you could sleep with too who suffers the same fate as Iona. 

As for Fergus being the heir, he was the oldest so why wouldn't he be the heir? 

Also to be fair, both Iona and the guy (who's name is...something) can be this for same gendered Wardens. 

[Sully13]

Not as LIs but men are viewed as disposable in general.

look at most war games. when COD added female models alot of gamers were happy the SJWs clamed it was training Duded to kill women.

so shooting Guys is fine but not Women apparently.

 

yeah its a trope but with the older brother but i have to ask... so what? 

[Killdren88]

Their idea of character development is turn the only rational, pro-peace leader into a racist psychopath.

I recall at the end of War Crimes she starts to get better.

[Killdren88]

Not as LIs but men are viewed as disposable in general.
look at most war games. when COD added female models alot of gamers were happy the SJWs clamed it was training Duded to kill women.
so shooting Guys is fine but not Women apparently.

yeah its a trope but with the older brother but i have to ask... so what?

It just proves the extremist don't want equality but supremacy. They are the lot i cannot stand.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Also to be fair, both Iona and the guy (who's name is...something) can be this for same gendered Wardens. 

I looked it up. His name is Dairren. 

[Remmirath]

I'm happiest with box art, posters, and so forth that portray as ambiguous a main character as possible (if indeed the main character is portrayed), but if they must pick either an obviously male or obviously female character I'd say it would be time for an obviously female one. I prefer it to be ambiguous because that sends a clearer message of 'hey, you can put whatever character you want, here' to me than any more defined character would.

In videos and screenshots, though -- especially to do with character creation -- I think it's important to include female characters and male characters both, as well as at least a few different species options if applicable. I definitely recall that part of the reason I didn't play Mass Effect for years after it came out was that I'd got the impression you had a completely set character.
 

Which, if either, of the City Elf Origin or the Human Noble Origin is "worse" (in whatever context you'd like to take that word)?

I didn't find the human noble origin to be very interesting, but that's probably because I tend to gravitate more towards playing non-human characters when the option is available. Also, the fact that you must have the dog put me off somewhat, as it makes me uncomfortable every time the game focuses on it, so for those reasons I haven't played that origin as much as most of the others.

While I like some aspects of the city elf origin quite a bit, there are also some aspects of it that bother me -- for example, how different it is between the male and female characters, with one being captured and freeing herself and the other going in to rescue other people. From the way it was initially talked about, I had actually expected both to end up how the female origin does. I'm not sure whether that would've been better, though, although I do think it would have been more fair/even if they had both taken the same angle one way or another. I expect some people would've become more upset about it, had both origins played out how the female one does, but that's probably just cynicism speaking. I did mostly see it as portraying how hard the elves have it in general, but there are certainly other ways that could've been accomplished.

I suppose that, while I find the city elves in general (and thus the origin) to be more interesting than the human nobles in general (and thus that origin), I'd say that -- certainly in terms of how the female characters are treated -- the human noble origin is more even-handed.

[puppyofwar]

I recall at the end of War Crimes she starts to get better.

*shrug* I never read the books, and I only play Horde side, so no clue.

[Sully13]

Sod the artwork just give me the game.

[Stelae]

 

Which, if either, of the City Elf Origin or the Human Noble Origin is "worse" (in whatever context you'd like to take that word)?

 

In terms of gendered writing, the City Elf origin is much more altered by the gender of the player than the Human Noble one.  I think the City Elf, as written, is sloppy.

 

Human Noble gives you Iona/Dairren as a one night stand regardless of your gender, and redshirts them as soon as the combat starts.  It alters whether they die onscreen or not. Your entire family is massacred, and that may play into your motivations, but you at least have the option of having wanted to be a Grey Warden before that happened, so it's not the usual refrigerator trope.   Even if you swear revenge, it's not your only motivation. The badness of the bad guys is established by killing Oriana and Oren, which is a bit tropey, but there's also the little matter of the political coup, which gives the whole thing a larger context. 

 

City Elf, even with the sexual violence elements, lets you rescue yourself if you play as female, but basically turns all the women into damsels and then helpmeets if you play as male.  And the man initiating the sexual violence is more of a throwaway character too; he's just a random presence in Howe's dungeon if you play anything other than City Elf.  First time I met him, as a Dwarf Rogue, I had no idea who he was or why I should care.  So the trope is pretty cheaply used on a virtual nobody, as well as being eye-rollingly cliched.  It doesn't work as well as it might to establish that all of Denerim is an awful place for elves any more than the background chatter of the guards does.  It comes across as titillation for its own sake, and a hamfisted attempt at "gritty".  YMMV.

[aTigerslunch]

Agreed. I don't like some of the critiques, but I'm not about to condone some of this other stuff. If I could, I'd dish out my own violence on some of these males. I'm not a woman, but I'm still offended. Both for women, and for myself (in the case of myself, they make me - another male gamer - look stupid. Kind of like an idiotic relative). 

 

I wish it had not elevated to this point. Now she's got such a big platform that I'm not sure who can engage her equally. She's famous now. It'd be nice if she could just sit down and listen to some fans of these games and have a constructive conversation.

 

I wanted to quote that I agree.  

 

I'd love to a cup of coffee with her and just talk to her as well.  Pick her brain, and also give my feedback respectfully to her.  The irony of this is that if it hadn't been for the level of overreaction from those that despise her, she might not have become as well known as she has.

 

I never knew anything about her till that incident. I despise how that went down, threatening and such. The talking to her part, meh, I dont pay attention to anyone pretty much on Youtube that gives their voices to how they feel about stuff. Dont care what their thoughts are, I wont mind listening to extra info like GamerD does instead, that is why I look at some of her stuff. Youtube critics are blowing wind for all I care. Until I actually pick up the controller and play that game myself, I cant really justify an opinion other than, not interested. Which she does, *shrugs* thats on her and anyone that actually listens to her. Is she wrong, right? Honestly, never will watch her videos so I cant even say she is wrong or right myself. Its her opinions not mine, and they wont always agree.

 

All I question about is, if ya didnt like the video there, why are ya still watching them all?   That isnt directed at you specifically.

 

I'm going to ask a question that I would never ask in any other thread on these forums, but I'm honestly curious as to what the opinions on this are. I will edit the question out at the first sign of it not being treated as a respectful discussion. 

 

 

Which, if either, of the City Elf Origin or the Human Noble Origin is "worse" (in whatever context you'd like to take that word)?

 

Eh, I cant really come up with an answer other than I enjoyed the origins, i had noticed somethings others pointed out, but only played female through them except one. It was fun escaping as a female on my own. It sucked that my one night stand died right next to my noble, she wept but not long due to the fight ensuing. Not sure exactly a conclussive deal here myself. I did play the male noble, but was being mean and rude to everyone, so not sure how to compare to my female noble that didnt do that.     My experience with the two origins were pretty much balanced, due to my play throughs, I never played a male elf yet, never will, nor a dwarf male and again, never will. Though I do know about the possibility of a child being casteless through the male noble dwarf.

[fdgvdddvdfdfbdfb]

There's a difference between censoring and editing.

The women who pointed out the creepy sex plot were *working* on DAI with *their* team. They're part of the creative process. It's *their* project too. Their input is valid in the editing process.

Censoring is when a higher authority refuses to allow someone else's full finished product be as it is. Instead said authority pokes holes in it to censor out specific, and *completed* parts.

I'm not so concerned with the definitions as curious as to how it originally was.

 

 

In terms of gendered writing, the City Elf origin is much more altered by the gender of the player than the Human Noble one.  I think the City Elf, as written, is sloppy.

 

Human Noble gives you Iona/Dairren as a one night stand regardless of your gender, and redshirts them as soon as the combat starts.  It alters whether they die onscreen or not. Your entire family is massacred, and that may play into your motivations, but you at least have the option of having wanted to be a Grey Warden before that happened, so it's not the usual refrigerator trope.   Even if you swear revenge, it's not your only motivation. The badness of the bad guys is established by killing Oriana and Oren, which is a bit tropey, but there's also the little matter of the political coup, which gives the whole thing a larger context. 

 

City Elf, even with the sexual violence elements, lets you rescue yourself if you play as female, but basically turns all the women into damsels and then helpmeets if you play as male.  And the man initiating the sexual violence is more of a throwaway character too; he's just a random presence in Howe's dungeon if you play anything other than City Elf.  First time I met him, as a Dwarf Rogue, I had no idea who he was or why I should care.  So the trope is pretty cheaply used on a virtual nobody, as well as being eye-rollingly cliched.  It doesn't work as well as it might to establish that all of Denerim is an awful place for elves any more than the background chatter of the guards does.  It comes across as titillation for its own sake, and a hamfisted attempt at "gritty".  YMMV.

That may be the case under scrutiny, but without analysing anything I found City Elf more interesting than Human Noble at face value, which is probably the Origin I least enjoyed. And also without going into metafeminism, I enjoy the difference for male and female characters, both for having more scenarios to play, and also because I appreciate when games recognise differences in decisions and the characters you make.

 

But by all means, throw in the threat of sodomy for male characters to spice things up a little.

[In Exile]

I was just thinking my way through the inversion - that is, if it was the female PC rescuing a bunch of... dudes (princes?) in distress. On the one hand, it flips around gender norms. On the other hand, it would play Vaughn off as a depraved homosexual. So I thought, what if Vaughn was female? At that point I reasoned that you'd either get (1) it's OK if gender-swapped Vaughn is hot (cf. all those male student/female teacher style comments); (2) more visceral reactions if the game played up the threat of violent sodomy by pegging. 

[karushna5]

I have to be careful because this topic tends to "rile me up"

 

The city Elf Origin was incredibly, IMO, hamfisted. Vaugn is about as much a cliche as possible, and at any time that is used to show how "terrible" it is for a group, I feel it is done for grit then respectfully. I don't always agree with feministFrequency but her video about how crudely sexual assault is treated in video games is exactly what I feel is wrong with fiction today period. I feel the acceptance of Rape, and especially Game of Thrones "everyone does it and everyone gets it" is almost ridiculous to an extreme that it feels like fiction has lost credibility. Also authors are being pressured to include it in other work. I have heard authors dissmissed or put down for not taking their work seriously unless they include it, and people dissmissing anything other than a comedy for refusing to use it as a plot point.
 

it isn't just video games, but as an interactive medium Video games make it the most harmful. I actually fear for the medium as a whole if grit just means more sexual cruelty in a way that is laughed off if it is a man and rendered in absolute sickening detail if it is a woman. I need men to stop saving women from being raped in stories/games. It renders absolute helplessness, you can't stop it unless someone comes and saves you. And playing that out and people clamoring for it to be included is so incredibly uncomfortable.

 

Honestly, the worst was DA2 which used it as throwaway lines in which you could do nothing and made the whole game unplayable. It was terrible and so hamfisted and empty with no point but grit. I hate this culture which says complaining about Rape Culture is being whiney, but Rape is Sooo inevitable that it MUST, absolutely MUST be included in every single serious fiction. Anything else is Censored or being a baby and not doing your "art" justice. The fact it is only art if someone, usually a woman, is raped makes me furious.

 

I quit reading because a humourous fantasy just raped their main character out of the blue for no reason but for a plot development on her powers. I WILL quit playing video games if they ever rape my character. I have seen things that dealt with it respectively, but I think people have long forgotten how to do that. I personally blame how casual rape is in video games on the sexist culture of video games and comics. Once you start treating women as sexual objects, their sexual abuse for plot is likewise used. The disrespect of gay people in this culture (as a whole) cannot be disconnected by the gross nature people portray raped men. The whole thing needs to stop and it scares me very deeply people don't see it as more of an issue.
 

[puppyofwar]

While I don't think featuring rape in a story necessary means the author treating female character as sex object, but I agree on that rape should not be use lightly as a device to create tension, angst; to showing "dark/grittiness"  of the setting or to give another character motivation. Like any other horrible crime, rape in media can be done "well", but it needs to be treated tactfully, sadly I have't seen many work can achieve that, including DA (to be fair, CE as a female elf is heck a lot of fun for me personally)

 

EDIT

Again, using Last of Us as an example, the encounter between Elle and a certain villain is pretty well done. We already know the world they live in is a crappy, dog-eats-dog one and Elle is capable dealing with such harshness.  The villain's wickedness and foul intention were too established before that certain event. But his intention behind those maliciousness is never spelled out, even until he overpower her and Elle bash his face to a pulp with a machete, the devs chose to let the audience interpret the situation as they feel fit. (Me personally never feel like it's rape, I was more like, OH ****  DIEEEEE!!)

[Ryzaki]

Seriously I just hate how rape has become a shorthand way to establish an antagonist. "Oh that guys a rapist so you know he's evil!" or "you know her life is utterly terrible because s/he has rape as backstory!" like we need a glowing neon sign or something. And 9 times out of 10 it does come across as utterly shallow.

[puppyofwar]

As I said earlier, ALL of the Origins are shallow. 

 

All of them.

 

The CE elf story isn't more shallow. It's par for the course. It's my main complaint about DAO -- that it isn't about "origin" stories much at all. It's about a short origin story, and then skipping into generic Hero's Path mode, where you're identified mostly as the Warden forevermore. I liked Hawke more because the origin story was woven throughout the entire game. It's a more personal tale.

 

Within the restrictions of that however, I think the CE origin works well enough. It gets across a few points about the lives of elves and the overall lore of the DA world. This is all that is needed. It sucks that it has to be in shorthand, but it met it's goal.

*sigh, yeah, I get your point. At least DA didn't overuse it like GoT does.

 

Seriously, Mr. Martin, you are a great writer, but those really put me off your books and the show....

 

Edit 

Whooo 100 post~

[karushna5]

Agreed. One person put it very well. It seems men stories are about how much they can accomplish, while women stories are about how much they can take. Since Rape is considered the worst thing that can happen to a woman, it is often used haphazardly in anything that features them heavily. So while there are more and more stories about women, I find that just means there are more characters to suffer abuse.

 

One thing I felt handled Rape respectfully was Shawshank redemption. They showed him fighting them off and then narrated that sometimes he could and sometimes he couldn't but he still did, and they showed him in an active role in his situation, never glorifying it, and mentioning it as something he dealt with as well as he could. That was something I think was done well. The thing about rape is I feel it is poorly done when desensitized OR sensationalized. It can't be treated as something that just happens, or made into a victimizing horrors of horrors. Treating it seriously, and putting the power into the victims hands, preferably not something that sends them on a violent rampage.

 

If Shianni could have made it so Vaugn lost his title, instead of a reason for the PC to murder him, it would have been better. I can think of several instances where a rape could be used more respectfully. But honestly? I have a hard time imagining, in such a rape obsessed culture, a good reason to add to another one. Most important is the person/character has to be the hero of the situation instead of just the victim, and taking revenge for being a victim isn't the answer, being strong afterwards isn't the answer. I also feel it belongs much more in dialogue than ever on screen.

[aTigerslunch]

I'm not so sure rape is the best idea to generate a villain.  I am keen on making villains without them being villains too, but as far as prewritten is concerned, that is way to hard to develop.   Though writing a villain in this way, prewritten, has to suspect a viable excuse of how that guy/girl went that route.

 

Example of plotting a future antagonist.  The protag and antag are on talking terms. The protag tries to help others, and happens too often, he/she leaves to oppose the protag with their own convulsions. Or the protag is quite evil, or acts evil, that the antag runs off to impose justice. How long or what is done at that time, would need written, but this now excludes an antag going this route....which now I finally thought of how to get my antag in my own story written.  Sweeeeet!  

[puppyofwar]

Yeah, if it comes to novels, a CE story could be more complex. There's no point in using (or rather, overusing) "shorthand". Not sure what Martin's use of it is though.. I've only read the first book, and seen the show.

Ditto, I might be generalizing, if so, I apologize. I only finished the first two book, then got hit on the face by red wedding spoiler (thanks ,DAD  )  and dropped the franchise

 

[Elite Midget]

Seriously I just hate how rape has become a shorthand way to establish an antagonist. "Oh that guys a rapist so you know he's evil!" or "you know her life is utterly terrible because s/he has rape as backstory!" like we need a glowing neon sign or something. And 9 times out of 10 it does come across as utterly shallow.

To be fair, I've never met a rapists that wasn't a sick person so... Yeah.

 

Rape is traumatizing and not everyone gets past it at the same pace, or at all, like others may be able to.

 

Games typically don't use Rape realistically, and tend to have rapists be new introduction characters that don't really have much to do with the story, so I can understand why many don't have much faith in material that has Rape as a part of things as it's typically not tied too well to the story and is usually only there for the shock factor.

[karushna5]

As I said earlier, ALL of the Origins are shallow. 

 

All of them.

 

The CE elf story isn't more shallow. It's par for the course. It's my main complaint about DAO -- that it isn't about "origin" stories much at all. It's about a short origin story, and then skipping into generic Hero's Path mode, where you're identified mostly as the Warden from that point onwards. Your companions don't even care about you much. except for your status as Warden. I liked Hawke more because the origin story was woven throughout the entire game. It's a more personal tale.

 

Within the restrictions of that however, I think the CE origin works well enough. It gets across a few points about the lives of elves and the overall lore of the DA world. This is all that is needed. It sucks that it has to be in shorthand, but it met it's goal.

 

Could they have used another atrocity? Sure. Slavery and servitude is the most obvious one to go for (when speaking "shorthand"), but they already had a story for that when you revisit the Alienage again later.

These are different problems entirely. Shallow as a way to set up a point, and shallow in the way Rape is used as a catch for edgy isn't bad becase it is a lazy way to make something edgy but bad because you took a deep and dark serious subject that many many people go through, and trivialize it for a quick plot point. The fact an atrocity "had" to be usedto show the City Elves plight makes my point. Using atrocity as saying these people have it bad is not just trivializing the story but also trivializing the act, to the point that pretending to sexually molest other players dead characters is so common in some games. The trivializing of it has become a problem.

 

I am a gamer, most of my friends are gamers. Rape has become such a common idea I sometimes feel "rape" has become the new PWNd. I feel like the use of Rape is a casual way being on par to going on the Hero's Journey and not mentioning your origin hardly again is part of the problem. The fact it is a literary technique of well "We are using one terrible atrocity later, so we can't use it again(not even give that more context and perhaps a deeper meaning so it seems less gritty for the sake of it later on) so we need another one at the beginning to say how bad they really have it" It is disrespectful. There are so many ways to show how one group is horribly oppressed than to Rape them and have them Enslaved right in their homes. The fact an atrocity must happen to them both times you are there to show grit is terrible because that is a weak way for narrative but worse it is terrible because using something truly horrible and turning it into grit factor is desensitizing the thing itself. The fact it MUST be used in any narrative to say how bad people have it is what is messed up with the whole thing IMO.

[Ryzaki]

To be fair, I've never met a rapists that wasn't a sick person so... Yeah.

 

Rape is traumatizing and not everyone gets past it at the same pace, or at all, like others may be able to.

 

Games typically don't use Rape realistically, and tend to have rapists be new introduction characters that don't really have much to do with the story, so I can understand why many don't have much faith in material that has Rape as a part of things as it's typically not tied too well to the story and is usually only there for the shock factor.

 

Fair enough but it being short cut to labeling an antagonist is just bleh at this point. It's not clever, it's not done in a particularly engaging or interesting manner most of the time either. I liked the fem elf origin mostly because gutting Vaughn was a highlight and my femPC pretty much saving herself and the rest of them was heroic. Still the way the origin was done was all kinds of cringeworthy/sighing from the hamfisted muwahahaha Vaughn did to the "grab a ****** and have a good time." was just...really poorly done. I mean I honestly thought I had gotten there in time to save Shianni my first playthrough because they shove her under the rug afterwards so quickly. Wasn't til I hit ostagar that I realized what happened. >_>

 

Of course people have various ways of dealing with traumatic events.

 

Yep at this point I rather we go back to the old blow up a city while they twisted their mustaches type of antagonists. At least that was less annoying to me.