Sharteel- A man hater...yes. But if you are arguing that this is a world where women are not supposed to be fighters, then couldn't she be seen as an offshoot of this?
Jaheira- Fighter/Druid. A strong female warrior right there.
Branwen- Cleric of Tempus, the God of war and battles.
So, as long as you count the priest of a warrior god to be a front-liner, there are 3 warrior females and 6 warrior men. Considering that this is a quasi-medieval fantasy setting, that's not bad.
Baldur's Gate 2:
Jaheira- again. It is a disservice to write her off as an elven spellcaster. She is a fighter/druid! Best used to cast stoneskin on herself and to wade into the front lines with two scimitars. She's also a half/elf, whose background has much more to do with her human side than elven.
And for her romance, she stays a strong woman throughout it. Yes, you need to rescue her. But you need to rescue Anomen too! So I don't see how that puts down women at all. I fail to see any sexism with her.
Mazzy- Fighter with paladin-esque abilities. And I see her having something of a romance with Korgan, which is pretty sweet with the way they go about it. (For anyone who doesn't see it, bring both into your party. Korgan writes her poetry, gives her a shoulder massage, and she brings out his backstory on why he is a murderous maniac. For her sake, he agrees to try and be less of a murderous jerk. Still a better love story than twilight.)
Fewer females in BG2, but the two warriors are pretty badass.
Of the rest of them, you get
1 cleric 1 cleric/mage 2 thief/mages
Which means that 2/6 female characters are warriors. Again, for a quasi medieval fantasy setting, that really isn't bad.
The setting of BG is medieval high-fantasy, as understood and/or imagined by people 1000 years after them. If the society of that time period is known to be patriarchal, then a story with patriarchal elements will be more realistic than one full of modern sensibilities. The reverse is true if society then is known to be matriarchal. There is no problem if the "problem" is that of trying to replicate the setting as it is understood.
BG can be enjoyed as the RPG that it is without involving it in modern-day culture wars, no matter which side one is on. Where a player stands is really not anybody else's business, so the game can be left to stand as the classic that it is, warts and all. No need to start imposing modern views onto it. Seriously. There are too many zealots of all stripes trying to turn nearly everything into another culture-war flashpoint - enough is enough.
For pragmatic reasons, I believe the vanilla game should be a version that is least offensive to the most number of players or would-be players. If certain players feel very strongly about things and want to make changes to suit their tastes, mods are the way to go, or even make a new game - nobody is stopping anyone. Every player is his own DM, but his preferred version should not be the version that all others need to follow.
I read the first two books, and it was the disjointed story and awkward descriptions that "stood out" (e.g. Jaheira making a "convincing" Calishite dancing girl because she was jumping around trying to get the spider out of her breasts). The novelisations are bad even if they are read as stand-alone stories.
There are lots of books based in The Forgotten Realms. Problem is, they aren't that good. The good ones are based on the adventures of Drizzt.
The beauty of D&D is that its appeal is that you get to decide and create your own story, so having that element taken away from it makes it lose some of its charm. If you want great fantasy novels, go and read the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series.
- The Bhaalspawn, Abdel Adrian, is a thuggish mercenary who already has ample experience as a fighter at the start of the story. - There is a completely gratuitous scene where Gorion's body is devoured by ghouls and Abdel kills them, complete with descriptions of Gorion's various body parts (such as his eyeballs) falling out as he disembowels them. - Khalid is some slimy lech who has already cheated on Jaheira once before. - Jaheira is much more helpless in the novel. At one point, a spider crawls into her clothes, and Abdel ends up ripping off her shirt. - Minsc is some red-haired idiot working at the Copper Coronet. He has no further relevance to the plot. - During the sojourn through the Underdark, Imoen sleeps with Phaere and discovers she is a lesbian. - Abdel ends up sleeping with Bodhi, despite having Jaheira as his love interest.
I suspect the novelisations were meant to target the market of masochistic readers. It's otherwise difficult to explain how any minimally-functioning business would allow such compost to see the light of day.
On the other hand, I read my copies with a morbid sense of curiosity - I regretted buying them (I have two of the three) but after I started reading, I just had to continue to see how bad they could be.
It could be that the only purpose of some books is to serve as a warning to others how not to write.
I can only think that some editor at TSR hated the BG games and directed the author to write that dreck on purpose.
I can only think that some editor at TSR hated the BG games and directed the author to write that dreck on purpose.
Fun fact, Philip Athans, the author of the first one, was actually one of the head editors for Wizards of the Coast lol. So yes, it was an editors fault.
I guess it's possible to be an intelligent and kind person and still write complete and utter garbage... Still, I'm surprised by this.
Well... people don't usually like talking about their black marks, especially those that left their reputations in tatters. Also, last I heard, intelligence, kindness and writing ability have no known correlation with one another
I guess it's possible to be an intelligent and kind person and still write complete and utter garbage... Still, I'm surprised by this.
Well... people don't usually like talking about their black marks, especially those that left their reputations in tatters. Also, last I heard, intelligence, kindness and writing ability have no known correlation with one another
- The Bhaalspawn, Abdel Adrian, is a thuggish mercenary who already has ample experience as a fighter at the start of the story. - There is a completely gratuitous scene where Gorion's body is devoured by ghouls and Abdel kills them, complete with descriptions of Gorion's various body parts (such as his eyeballs) falling out as he disembowels them. - Khalid is some slimy lech who has already cheated on Jaheira once before. - Jaheira is much more helpless in the novel. At one point, a spider crawls into her clothes, and Abdel ends up ripping off her shirt. - Minsc is some red-haired idiot working at the Copper Coronet. He has no further relevance to the plot. - During the sojourn through the Underdark, Imoen sleeps with Phaere and discovers she is a lesbian. - Abdel ends up sleeping with Bodhi, despite having Jaheira as his love interest.
Oh my God! Make it stop! Please!!!
So the Baldur's Gate novels are pretty much the equal to Mass Effect's Deception book by Dietz.
We prefer not to think about that one either.
...
No, not that bad. Maybe the last book of the Beka Cooper series: toss out the cast of the last 3 books and set up an abusive marriage/husband death to a random dude whose name was mentioned once in maybe four books. Yup. Sounds closer to this.
I mean, I guess you can choose to downplay/ignore it, but the facts are what they are:
-There are exactly two female fighters in the series. One's a cardboard man-hater (who you can't even recruit without first having a male character beat her in combat), the other is defined in part by how she can't be a paladin.
(Skipping over what's already been said related to Mazzy) Umm. Jaheira?
-Male characters have three love interests. They're all elves, they're all spellcasters, and they all have to be rescued.
Umm. Jaheira?
Jaheira is portrayed as a widow who is doing … I dunno, a PRETTY GOOD JOB of coping with her loss, not some weakling like you are apparently implying.
Also, say what you want about Viconia, I've known women like her. She's a very well-written character.
Aerie is a codependent woman. On the other hand, Khalid is a codependent man. Such people do exist! But you don't see anyone freaking out, saying that Khalid's existence shows how sexist the developers were.
I guess it's possible to be an intelligent and kind person and still write complete and utter garbage... Still, I'm surprised by this.
Athans seriously wrote this: "In an attempt to answer the rest of the question: no one should ever try to write a tie-in novel that ties in to something you’re not a fan of. If you’ve never played D&D and try to write a D&D novel, we’ll know, and so will the readers, and it won’t be a happy experience for anyone. Writing tie-in fiction is in many ways harder than just exploring your own fantasy world. You have to be ready to do research and if you don’t love the world you’re researching, well, that would have to just be a painful process."
I...I just...well...
...maybe it is his way of saying that he learned his lesson?
@Quartz, I don't think Jaheira functions that well as a direct counter-example to the "needs to be rescued" thing, since she needs to be rescued at least three times throughout the game (although I think one is specific to her romance). Now, she's absolutely a strong character otherwise, in terms of personality, depth, and mechanical power, so I don't think she's a negative portrayal overall, but it's definitely the case that she needs a lot of rescuing, and that's not without unfortunate implications.
Of course, a lot of NPCs need rescuing in BG2. While it's unfortunate that the list includes every female character in the game, many male characters and the PC him/herself also need to be rescued on at least one occasion. Arguably Haer'Dalis is actually the biggest "damsel" in distress in the game, since he has basically now agency in either of his captures and rescues. The female characters are at least allowed to contribute to their own rescues, which is... something, if not as much as we might like.
The female characters are at least allowed to contribute to their own rescues, which is... something, if not as much as we might like.
I'll never understand this sort of logic. I seriously don't get it. If someone can explain it to me, please do. The purpose of a video game is for it to be fun, and to tell a good story. Baldur's Gate is fun and tells a good story. I don't see how being the social justice police is more important than being fun and telling a good story. It often seems to me that a game being the social justice police actually takes priority over telling a good story.
Please note, @Jarrakul, I'm saying this to you because you seem pretty reasonable, so I'm hoping you can explain it to me. Most people who I just described are extremist and can't put it into words for me.
Fair enough. I'll do my best to remain reasonable. Bear in mind that I have extremely strong opinions on the subject, but I don't think either of us would be well served by me screaming them at you. In fact, I consider "I don't understand why you think this, please explain" to be one of the most reasonable and productive things any person can say, so... good on you, I guess.
So, basically, it's like this. Stories are important. They shape our understanding of basically everything (if you want me to elaborate on this point, please ask). Folklore, religion, advice from your grandparents, it's all mostly stories. Movies, games, and books are a part of this as well. These stories convey ideas about the world. They show us what's right and wrong, how we can expect people to act, and what we can aspire to. That's amazing, but like most powerful things, it's also dangerous.
(This, incidentally, is where the more sane "games cause violence" arguments come from, and I'm not convinced they're entirely wrong. They just tend to ignore everything else about games, which is a pretty big mistake. Plenty big enough to sink many broader political points people want to make, although they can still point out ways games can be improved.)
But yeah. So stories shape the way we view the world, and therefore the way we interact with it. That's why this matters. The damsel-in-distress thing specifically is dangerous because it paints women as passive and in need of protection. Which basically leads men to try and play helicopter parent with their female friends and family members, and I'm sure I don't have to explain why that's a problem. Although if you want an example of what this does on a societal level, England in the 1800s had extremely strong norms of woman as passive, fragile, and chaste. This led to all sorts of nasty things, but the most striking is that men became so afraid of exhausting their passive, fragile wives that they went out and slept with prostitutes instead and long-story-short that's how syphilis became the #1 killer in the country.
So given that that's really bad for everyone, and given that games are a powerful mechanism for conveying stories, it's important that we do understand what our stories are teaching people about the world, and ask ourselves whether we want to be teaching those lessons. Of course this shouldn't come at the expense of writing good stories, but if the stories we write about women are overwhelmingly about romance and rescues, we're missing out on a lot of good stories for no good reason at all.
I hope that clarifies thing. There are a million other things I could say on this, but I'm not sure how to put them into one coherent post, and this is starting to get long anyway. Let me know if you continue to have questions, or if you feel I've ignored an important detail. I'm always open to reasonable discussion.
Not all forms of 'help' are rescuing, imho the 'damsel' trope does not apply in situations where the victim is not helpless (Ployer definately could be handled by sick Jaheira, but you help anyways), and in situations where the MC is pretty much equally helpless. Jaheira isn't really being rescued in Irenicus' Dungeon, you simply open her cell door. This might be a slight differentiation, but seriously, you don't even need to help her escape after opening her door.
I definitely agree with most of that, @Dreadkhan. For the damsel in distress trope to be in effect, I would argue that the character in question must be rendered unable to defend themselves effectively, and must rely entirely on another individual for aid. Offering help to someone as an equal (or roughly equal) partner certainly does not qualify. Keldorn, for example, is clearly not in need of rescuing, even though you help him complete his quest. Jaheira is in need of rescuing, I would argue, until you unlock her cage. At which point her passivity has ended, and she now assumes an active role in the group's self-rescue. I have trouble even being too upset about that period of passivity, because it's made very clear that the whole party was helpless in this situation, not just the women. Given that, I would hardly count this incident against Jaheira, but there's also the time she gets captured by bandits and used to threaten Charname (possibly romance only?) and the time she gets captured by Harpers.
@Jarrakul Thanks for your explanation. I think we're of the same opinion, I just tend to shrug things off easier. Perhaps this is a shortcoming of mine, perhaps not. Who really knows.
but there's also the time she gets captured by bandits and used to threaten Charname (possibly romance only?)
Side note: She gets pissed if you don't do that just right though. Aren't damsels in distress supposed to just swoon, "oh my hero!" pretty much no matter how they're saved? Heck, Jaheira's even bossy in her cage. You can cringe at Aerie all you want (I shall too … and cringe at Khalid, while we're at it), and you can arguably complain about Viconia, but Jaheira just isn't an issue no matter how you look at it, IMO.
Comments
Baldurs Gate 1:
Sharteel- A man hater...yes. But if you are arguing that this is a world where women are not supposed to be fighters, then couldn't she be seen as an offshoot of this?
Jaheira- Fighter/Druid. A strong female warrior right there.
Branwen- Cleric of Tempus, the God of war and battles.
The other fighters include...
Minsc - Ranger
Kivan - Ranger
Coran - Fighter/thief
Yeslick - Fighter/cleric
Khalid - Fighter
Ajantis - Paladin
So, as long as you count the priest of a warrior god to be a front-liner, there are 3 warrior females and 6 warrior men. Considering that this is a quasi-medieval fantasy setting, that's not bad.
Baldur's Gate 2:
Jaheira- again. It is a disservice to write her off as an elven spellcaster. She is a fighter/druid! Best used to cast stoneskin on herself and to wade into the front lines with two scimitars. She's also a half/elf, whose background has much more to do with her human side than elven.
And for her romance, she stays a strong woman throughout it. Yes, you need to rescue her. But you need to rescue Anomen too! So I don't see how that puts down women at all. I fail to see any sexism with her.
Mazzy- Fighter with paladin-esque abilities. And I see her having something of a romance with Korgan, which is pretty sweet with the way they go about it. (For anyone who doesn't see it, bring both into your party. Korgan writes her poetry, gives her a shoulder massage, and she brings out his backstory on why he is a murderous maniac. For her sake, he agrees to try and be less of a murderous jerk. Still a better love story than twilight.)
Fewer females in BG2, but the two warriors are pretty badass.
Of the rest of them, you get
1 cleric
1 cleric/mage
2 thief/mages
Which means that 2/6 female characters are warriors. Again, for a quasi medieval fantasy setting, that really isn't bad.
BG can be enjoyed as the RPG that it is without involving it in modern-day culture wars, no matter which side one is on. Where a player stands is really not anybody else's business, so the game can be left to stand as the classic that it is, warts and all. No need to start imposing modern views onto it. Seriously. There are too many zealots of all stripes trying to turn nearly everything into another culture-war flashpoint - enough is enough.
For pragmatic reasons, I believe the vanilla game should be a version that is least offensive to the most number of players or would-be players. If certain players feel very strongly about things and want to make changes to suit their tastes, mods are the way to go, or even make a new game - nobody is stopping anyone. Every player is his own DM, but his preferred version should not be the version that all others need to follow.
I read the first two books, and it was the disjointed story and awkward descriptions that "stood out" (e.g. Jaheira making a "convincing" Calishite dancing girl because she was jumping around trying to get the spider out of her breasts). The novelisations are bad even if they are read as stand-alone stories.
The beauty of D&D is that its appeal is that you get to decide and create your own story, so having that element taken away from it makes it lose some of its charm. If you want great fantasy novels, go and read the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series.
With respect to mazzy not bring a paladin. Recruit her and take the long explanatory dialogue options and make up your own mind on that.
I can also complain that there are no female bards but does it really matter? I'd play the game nonetheless.
*Disclaimer: I may or may not be receiving royalties from them
Also, his advice here is pretty ironic considering: http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12705
Here's a more extensive interview here: http://www.thebolthole.org/blog/2011/12/19/author-interview-philip-athans/
I guess it's possible to be an intelligent and kind person and still write complete and utter garbage... Still, I'm surprised by this.
We prefer not to think about that one either.
...
No, not that bad. Maybe the last book of the Beka Cooper series: toss out the cast of the last 3 books and set up an abusive marriage/husband death to a random dude whose name was mentioned once in maybe four books. Yup. Sounds closer to this.
Umm. Jaheira? Umm. Jaheira?
Jaheira is portrayed as a widow who is doing … I dunno, a PRETTY GOOD JOB of coping with her loss, not some weakling like you are apparently implying.
Also, say what you want about Viconia, I've known women like her. She's a very well-written character.
Aerie is a codependent woman. On the other hand, Khalid is a codependent man. Such people do exist! But you don't see anyone freaking out, saying that Khalid's existence shows how sexist the developers were. You mean making everyone bisexual and polyamorous? (Dragon Age 2…) You're right, that's so much better!
I...I just...well...
...maybe it is his way of saying that he learned his lesson?
Just because you know it's against site rules doesn't mean you can do it. --Site Staff
Of course, a lot of NPCs need rescuing in BG2. While it's unfortunate that the list includes every female character in the game, many male characters and the PC him/herself also need to be rescued on at least one occasion. Arguably Haer'Dalis is actually the biggest "damsel" in distress in the game, since he has basically now agency in either of his captures and rescues. The female characters are at least allowed to contribute to their own rescues, which is... something, if not as much as we might like.
Rescue Minsc (male) - cage
Rescue Cernd (male) - prison
Rescue Anomen (male) - part of the romance
Rescue Jan (male) - from imminent incarceration
Rescue Sarevok (male)- from hell
Rescue Mazzy (female) - shade lord
Rescue Viconia (female) - burnination
Rescue Aerie (female) - kalah, romance
Rescue Jaheira (female) - cage, ployer, romance
Rescue Imoen(female) -though she rescues you first
Rescue Nalia (female) - prison
In short? There is a lot of rescuing going on in BG2! Even Charname starts off by being rescued. The only NPCs who don't need to be rescued are:
Edwin
Korgan
Valygar
Keldorn
The EE npcs
Please note, @Jarrakul, I'm saying this to you because you seem pretty reasonable, so I'm hoping you can explain it to me. Most people who I just described are extremist and can't put it into words for me. I swear if that's a Trogodor reference … I love you.
So, basically, it's like this. Stories are important. They shape our understanding of basically everything (if you want me to elaborate on this point, please ask). Folklore, religion, advice from your grandparents, it's all mostly stories. Movies, games, and books are a part of this as well. These stories convey ideas about the world. They show us what's right and wrong, how we can expect people to act, and what we can aspire to. That's amazing, but like most powerful things, it's also dangerous.
(This, incidentally, is where the more sane "games cause violence" arguments come from, and I'm not convinced they're entirely wrong. They just tend to ignore everything else about games, which is a pretty big mistake. Plenty big enough to sink many broader political points people want to make, although they can still point out ways games can be improved.)
But yeah. So stories shape the way we view the world, and therefore the way we interact with it. That's why this matters. The damsel-in-distress thing specifically is dangerous because it paints women as passive and in need of protection. Which basically leads men to try and play helicopter parent with their female friends and family members, and I'm sure I don't have to explain why that's a problem. Although if you want an example of what this does on a societal level, England in the 1800s had extremely strong norms of woman as passive, fragile, and chaste. This led to all sorts of nasty things, but the most striking is that men became so afraid of exhausting their passive, fragile wives that they went out and slept with prostitutes instead and long-story-short that's how syphilis became the #1 killer in the country.
So given that that's really bad for everyone, and given that games are a powerful mechanism for conveying stories, it's important that we do understand what our stories are teaching people about the world, and ask ourselves whether we want to be teaching those lessons. Of course this shouldn't come at the expense of writing good stories, but if the stories we write about women are overwhelmingly about romance and rescues, we're missing out on a lot of good stories for no good reason at all.
I hope that clarifies thing. There are a million other things I could say on this, but I'm not sure how to put them into one coherent post, and this is starting to get long anyway. Let me know if you continue to have questions, or if you feel I've ignored an important detail. I'm always open to reasonable discussion.
Ymmv!