No, of course not. But I don't want to know that I'm wrong, I want to know WHY I'm wrong. If it's because the character is unlikeable, that doesn't carry much weight. If it's because people in the modern Western world aren't that way, that doesn't seem valid either. (I discussed this wrt Keldorn in another thread, where he should be seen more as a Prussian Junker than you and me.) In short, I am certainly willing to listen. However, if a character is unlikeable or doesn't conform to what a particular group wants, that doesn't make the character bad or wrong or hateful. I need solid, tangible reasons, not the angry word-salad that unfortunately is what all sides normally devolve into.
Why do you need the reasons? People made their case to the people who worked on the game, and those reasons were accepted. Those reasons are also available online in articles about the character and situation as well as in discussion threads about the character and situation, so finding the reasons WHY should be fairly easy.
I don't think anyone's problem with Hainly Abrams was that she was unlikable. Their problem was that the character lacked verisimilitude and failed as far as transgender representation goes. The argument that she lives in a different context does not really matter that much as Mass Effect's human culture does not differ significantly from modern cultures. Plus there is the additional context that Mass Effect is fiction created now, not an artifact of another culture from another time.
Often, science fiction serves as social commentary on the modern day, and Mass Effect is no different. I mean, sure they have other sapient species and can travel faster than light, but most of the concerns and issues brought up within the game's context are concerns and issues that exist in the modern day. Not all, obviously (I doubt anyone is concerned about the eventual Reaper invasion and we don't exactly have more advanced precursor civilizations to study).
So really, the idea that characters exist outside of the cultural context in which they're created is not a useful idea. It's not particularly valid, either.
What they want is a stereotypical transgender character according to their beliefs, that is, a transgender character who behaves like here on this planet in this time totally disregarding that Mass Effect Andromeda plays in a different time and galaxy.
What Mass Effect Andromeda does, is present a transgender character who cannot be described as being "typically transgender".
Now they are at least two ways you can see this:
1.) You are offended. Because obviously the writers have no idea what it is like to be transgender. And you find their ignorance offensive.
2.) You take the atypically transgender character as a chance to reflect about yourself. What do you think a transgender person HAS TO be(have) like and why?
This is known as the fallacy of the excluded middle. You're focusing on the idea that everyone who complained was unreasonably offended, and excluding the idea that their reactions are genuine, honest reactions to seeing people like themselves reflected.
Where does the frustration and the feeling of offense come from when you see a transgender character in a science fiction setting in a different galaxy in a far away future who does not behave exactly like you would expect a transgender person to behave on this planet in this time in reality?
I think that could give you a lot to think about and lead to some truths about your own expectations and ideas about transgender people.
Mass Effect Andromeda is giving you the great opportunity to see what it could be like if transgender people would not (have to) behave like it seems to be expected of them in our time and age.
But option 1) is oh so much easier. Feeling offended, assuming the role of the victim and pointing fingers.
I addressed the bolded question above. I actually came across a name for the fallacy you're invoking here, but sadly I can't remember it. The gist of it is that you're trying to use the setting to justify the writing, when the writing and the setting itself both exist as products of modern western society, and cannot exist outside of that context.
And your final sentence continues the false dilemma. There are a range of possible reactions to an infelicitous representation of a marginalized class of people. Painting the reactions you don't like as a single "feeling offended, assuming the role of the victim, and pointing fingers" reaction is a straw man.
Basically what I am saying is that if you want to make a genuinely convincing argument about this situation, you need to understand what people are complaining about. As far as I can tell, you don't.
But seriously, this is a relatively minor character receiving a relatively minor change. Why up in arms over it? Why be so hypersensitive? Why die on this hill over something that will have no tangible effect on you?
What they want is a stereotypical transgender character according to their beliefs, that is, a transgender character who behaves like here on this planet in this time totally disregarding that Mass Effect Andromeda plays in a different time and galaxy.
What Mass Effect Andromeda does, is present a transgender character who cannot be described as being "typically transgender".
Now they are at least two ways you can see this:
1.) You are offended. Because obviously the writers have no idea what it is like to be transgender. And you find their ignorance offensive.
2.) You take the atypically transgender character as a chance to reflect about yourself. What do you think a transgender person HAS TO be(have) like and why?
Where does the frustration and the feeling of offense come from when you see a transgender character in a science fiction setting in a different galaxy in a far away future who does not behave exactly like you would expect a transgender person to behave on this planet in this time in reality?
I think that could give you a lot to think about and lead to some truths about your own expectations and ideas about transgender people.
Mass Effect Andromeda is giving you the great opportunity to see what it could be like if transgender people would not (have to) behave like it seems to be expected of them in our time and age.
But option 1) is oh so much easier. Feeling offended, assuming the role of the victim and pointing fingers.
Or the character can be poorly written. The writers were only attempting to put a trans character in the game, but don't know how to put the character in properly.
Lets look at the conversation: "What brought you out here to Andromeda?"
"Back home I was filling test-tubes in some dead-end lab..." This makes sense to the question being asked. The person felt unfilled in their work life and needed a change. Although travelling billions of light years in my opinion is quite drastic.
"People knew me as Stephan, but that was never who I was." No one asked this, and has nothing to do with what brought the person out to Andromeda. If anything, it is saying that the character wasn't accepted of who they were back home. If that is the case, it wouldn't have been casually shared as it is now. The other thing that doesn't fit is when her transformation happened. Did she wait till reaching Andromeda to get it, or was it done before/during the journey? If this is the future, with future technology, one would assume a person wouldn't have to wait till late in their adult life to have a transition.
Why do you need the reasons? People made their case to the people who worked on the game, and those reasons were accepted. Those reasons are also available online in articles about the character and situation as well as in discussion threads about the character and situation, so finding the reasons WHY should be fairly easy.
Wait, let me clarify. I'm talking about my writing, not others'. If the authors of that game decide to change something, then fine. They heard complaints, decided it was worth the change (for whatever reason), and proceeded. All good.
I have done some writing, though not much recently, and dealt with some complaints along these lines. Mostly they involved a character who was an oversexed spinster who could turn any comment into double entendre. (I'm not claiming this was a deep character, but a fairly popular one.) Most complaints really showed that preachers and holy rollers have dirtier minds than most; even *I* didn't make some of the filthy connections they did, and I wrote half the dialog.
One of the actors/writers is gay and he suggested a character based on a former partner who had some interesting quirks; this was when the actor was in college in another state. Based on his descriptions, we realized we'd been handed a gift from the gods. We changed a few things to avoid libel, protect identities, enhance comedic effects, etc, but this was based on an actual person. John Inman's character from Are You Being Served? might or might not have been an influence as well. And did the LBGTQ community complain? By and large, no, they found the character amusing and tried to figure out who it really was. But certain advocate-types decided to complain to make hay and threatened to go to the FCC. Likewise, a certain preacher denounced us because he felt we were promoting a gay lifestyle by making a gay character sympathetic. (He kept having bizarre accidents through no fault of his own, most of which were true incidents.) I figured that, if we were getting complaints from humorless people on both ends of the political spectrum, we were doing something right. In the end we retired the character because dealing with the FCC was expensive and got management nervous, but had it been a stage show we probably would have continued.
We did drop a couple characters and alter others because of complaints. They complaints were reasonable, and in the end made for better characters. But ultimately, it was the decision of the writers and the cast, with the producer casting the tie-breaking vote if needed.
I assume people who complained, as a group, told Bioware what was wrong with the character. Bioware agreed, and are going to change the character.
If someone does have a complaint, it doesn't hurt to listen to it, and dismissing it can have a negative impact on your audience (esp. the parts of the audience that share the complaint). You may ultimately disagree with the complaints, and that's fine. Or you might take them under consideration and make a few changes.
I wouldn't assume that people who complained did so because they're humorless though. They may not appreciate the specific humor you wrote for the character, but they probably have a healthy sense of humor in general. There may be something about your character that they might find not only not funny, but possibly painful. And again, you don't have to agree with them, but why insult them?
I wouldn't assume that people who complained did so because they're humorless though. They may not appreciate the specific humor you wrote for the character, but they probably have a healthy sense of humor in general. There may be something about your character that they might find not only not funny, but possibly painful. And again, you don't have to agree with them, but why insult them?
Not insulting, calling it as I see it. We met with a few people who complained, either over the phone or in person. One question I liked to ask, inspired by frustration, was how to make something humorous without being offensive. The conversations spurred by that question were enlightening, to say the least. I think one individual was surprised that we were writing comedy, not drama. But we recorded before a live crowd who generally hit one of the pubs on that block before the show, and we included their laughter in the broadcast. How that person didn't realize it was a comedy became a shibboleth for us on the show.
It's unfortunate that certain people are seizing on Hainly being transgender as the crux of the problem with her. To recap: we're talking about someone who signed up for a 600-year trip to another galaxy specifically to get away from her past, then immediately brings up said past to someone she's known for all of five minutes.
If she'd been a heterosexual woman who joined Andromeda because her fiance Stephan cheated on her and she wanted to forget him, bringing up said fiance at all - let alone in her first conversation - would be just as idiotic.
It may seem idiotic, but massive amounts of equally bad writing are passed over without complaint all the time.
Citation needed, because every review I've seen for middling games like Andromeda, Dragonspear or Inquisition tend to call out the writing as a whole for being mediocre, and then use specific examples to demonstrate the point. Hainly being transgender just adds another metric for comparison.
It may seem idiotic, but massive amounts of equally bad writing are passed over without complaint all the time.
Citation needed, because every review I've seen for middling games like Andromeda, Dragonspear or Inquisition tend to call out the writing as a whole for being mediocre, and then use specific examples to demonstrate the point. Hainly being transgender just adds another metric for comparison.
For your citation, how about every single story based computer game that doesn't have any transgender characters? They all feature at least some bad writing (because no one writes well all the time, and a team of writers is even worse), but they don't get attacked for having bad writing. The rule is clearly that bad writing is fine so long as you have no trasngender characters.
For your citation, how about every single story based computer game that doesn't have any transgender characters? They all feature at least some bad writing (because no one writes well all the time, and a team of writers is even worse), but they don't get attacked for having bad writing. The rule is clearly that bad writing is fine so long as you have no trasngender characters.
I can't actually tell if you're trolling here, because if you're legitimately arguing that bad writing never gets called out in video games... I mean, I don't even know where to start. To make such a completely false, demonstrably ignorant statement and expect to be taken seriously? I can't help you, friend. Go ahead and claim your win, I'm tapping out.
"They don't get attacked for having bad writing." Jesus. Were you not around for the ending of Mass Effect 3? "Retake Mass Effect" doesn't ring any bells?
Okay, I'll give you Mass Effect 3's ending. But there are hundreds of other instances of video game bad writing which, whilst might be commented on in passing in a review or the odd forum thread, doesn't elicit people collapsing in hysterics and writing letters of complaint.
Of the top of my head, games which I've played in the last 12 months which have some very bad writing: Baldur's Gate, Pillars of Eternity, T:ToN, Divinity: Original Sin*, Ember*, NWN2, The Witcher*, Room 3.
Okay, I'll give you Mass Effect 3's ending. But there are hundreds of other instances of video game bad writing which, whilst might be commented on in passing in a review or the odd forum thread, doesn't elicit people collapsing in hysterics and writing letters of complaint.
Of the top of my head, games which I've played in the last 12 months which have some very bad writing: Baldur's Gate, Pillars of Eternity, T:ToN, Divinity: Original Sin*, Ember*, NWN2, The Witcher*, Room 3.
*So bad I couldn't complete the game.
I would disagree with you on a good number those...
Okay, I'll give you Mass Effect 3's ending. But there are hundreds of other instances of video game bad writing which, whilst might be commented on in passing in a review or the odd forum thread, doesn't elicit people collapsing in hysterics and writing letters of complaint.
Of the top of my head, games which I've played in the last 12 months which have some very bad writing: Baldur's Gate, Pillars of Eternity, T:ToN, Divinity: Original Sin*, Ember*, NWN2, The Witcher*, Room 3.
*So bad I couldn't complete the game.
There's also a significant difference between bad writing that is generally bad and bad writing that specifically misrepresents a particular group of people. The latter is frequently more likely to prompt that sort of response, and not just from transgender people. If I run into particularly bad writing I might quit the game. If I, as a disabled person, encounter particularly bad writing that misrepresents disabled people, I am likely to say something, preferably to the developers or somewhere the developers can see it.
And like there are also games like Neverwinter Nights - there was no end of complaints about the writing and story for the OC. The response was to produce better campaigns. Another game I recall getting a lot of complaints was Dungeon Siege (but that more for being able to play itself without player input). Morrowind was often criticized for having a standardized set of NPC responses that the majority of NPCs would draw from.
I have seen a lot of complaints about the writing in Torment: Tides of Numenera as well as the writing in Pillars of Eternity.
It is simply not true that games only get criticized if they misrepresent transgender people. You're cherry picking the two games that had such complaints, but even then both games had criticism that didn't necessarily have anything to do with the trans NPCs - Mass Effect: Andromeda's writing overall has received a lot of criticism, and I'm sure most people are by now aware of the facial animations. It is a bit more ambiguous with Siege of Dragonspear because a lot of the negative backlash that title received was prompted by people who hate having trans people in their video games at all, but there are genuinely people who didn't have any problem with Mizhena who hate the writing and are willing to say so.
Okay, I'll give you Mass Effect 3's ending. But there are hundreds of other instances of video game bad writing which, whilst might be commented on in passing in a review or the odd forum thread, doesn't elicit people collapsing in hysterics and writing letters of complaint.
Of the top of my head, games which I've played in the last 12 months which have some very bad writing: Baldur's Gate, Pillars of Eternity, T:ToN, Divinity: Original Sin*, Ember*, NWN2, The Witcher*, Room 3.
Yyyyyeah, let's set aside that there's no consensus on most of the games you name here for allegedly having "very bad writing" - you will find consensus on Fallout 3, Borderlands, Oblivion, Final Fantasy XIII, Assassin's Creed 1, Diablo 3 and Fable 2, among many others. And do you know what those games have in common? In each of those cases, player backlash prompted the developers to try harder. Fallout: New Vegas, Reaper of Souls, AC2, those games were designed in part to address critiques of bad writing.
I am as I said, talking about games that include some bad writing, rather than games which are entirely bad.
Take PoE. There is one point in which
A companion character kills herself as a consequence of what the player says at the end of her personal quest, despite that outcome being totally in conflict with that character's personality and motivation as established up until that point.
There are threads on the forum grousing about it, and a general consensus that it is indeed very bad writing. However, there is no mass hysteria, fainting in the aisles, letters of complaint, demands for apologies, or condemnations of the entire game because of it. Why? Because the badly written character is not transsexual.
Even if you are talking about generally sub-par writing, as in the NWN OC, sure, there was much disappointment expressed, but again, no mass hysteria or demands for an apology.
I am as I said, talking about games that include some bad writing, rather than games which are entirely bad.
Take PoE. There is one point in which
A companion character kills herself as a consequence of what the player says at the end of her personal quest, despite that outcome being totally in conflict with that character's personality and motivation as established up until that point.
There are threads on the forum grousing about it, and a general consensus that it is indeed very bad writing. However, there is no mass hysteria, fainting in the aisles, letters of complaint, demands for apologies, or condemnations of the entire game because of it. Why? Because the badly written character is not transsexual.
Oh, sure. I mean, it could be because good/great games with a spot of allegedly bad writing earn more leeway than mediocre games that have the same, but your explanation that it's actually all about the transsexuals makes so much more sense.
Even if you are talking about generally sub-par writing, as in the NWN OC, sure, there was much disappointment expressed, but again, no mass hysteria or demands for an apology.
Yup. I'm sure the lack of hysterics has nothing to do with "Mask of the Betrayer".
Bad writing of a sensitive topic gets noticed far more and the ensuing backlash overshadows bad writing of non-sensitive topics. When SoD was released, the majority of comments on the writing focused on Mizhena, with a minority on the rest of the game. You could hardly talk about anything else without getting derailed with Mizhena comments. People who wanted to talk about other aspects of the story were drowned out.
Sorry, Tilly, but you know that's not how it went down. The comments that focused on Mizhena at launch weren't coming from a place of concern about the writing - and that was obvious, because anyone who actually played up to that point then came back with variations on "That's it? That's the controversy?" It wasn't until much later that the transphobes and the trolls adjusted their argument to express faux-concern over the "quality" of the writing (while claiming the best way to handle it would be to allow the player to express open disgust when she tells you, or to kill her).
The original campaign of Neverwinter Nights never saw the torrent of hate that Siege of Dragonspear received. Yeah, we were unhappy about the first NWN campaign (after BG2's story), but not nearly to the hysteria we saw with SoD.
Because "Hordes of the Underdark" followed. And because, unlike BG2 or SoD, NWN1's original campaign wasn't the game's only selling point - it was packaged with tools for players to create their own modules, which they then did.
I'm not even sure what we're going on about. Way off topic. This thread is for Andromeda. Maybe this last half-page of deadwood should be split off, so Mass Effect players won't have to worry about catching fire when they want to talk about the game in here.
I disagree - the next time some troll tries to argue that the only reason anyone's criticizing Andromeda is because it has a transsexual character, I'd just as soon have this exchange on the books just so we don't have to go through all this again.
I am as I said, talking about games that include some bad writing, rather than games which are entirely bad.
Take PoE. There is one point in which
A companion character kills herself as a consequence of what the player says at the end of her personal quest, despite that outcome being totally in conflict with that character's personality and motivation as established up until that point.
There are threads on the forum grousing about it, and a general consensus that it is indeed very bad writing. However, there is no mass hysteria, fainting in the aisles, letters of complaint, demands for apologies, or condemnations of the entire game because of it. Why? Because the badly written character is not transsexual.
Oh, sure. I mean, it could be because good/great games with a spot of allegedly bad writing earn more leeway than mediocre games that have the same, but your explanation that it's actually all about the transsexuals makes so much more sense.
It does, since overall the writing on SoD (slated) was vastly superior to PoE (not slated). Most of which was "okay". Can't comment on Andromeda, because I haven't played it.
Even if you are talking about generally sub-par writing, as in the NWN OC, sure, there was much disappointment expressed, but again, no mass hysteria or demands for an apology.
Yup. I'm sure the lack of hysterics has nothing to do with "Mask of the Betrayer".
Given that Mask of the Betrayer was published for NWN2 in 2007, five years after and the NWNOC (2002), I would say that yes, the lack of hysterics was indeed completely unrelated. [/e twirls finger beside head]
I'm on my phone so I'll have to write out a full commentary later but I think it would be interesting to draw comparisons between Inquisition and Andromeda about their respective trans characters and what made Inquisition's ok while Andromeda's not ok.
Just a small conjecture seems to be "Bad writing is ok; bad writing on a hot topic is not ok."
Comments
I don't think anyone's problem with Hainly Abrams was that she was unlikable. Their problem was that the character lacked verisimilitude and failed as far as transgender representation goes. The argument that she lives in a different context does not really matter that much as Mass Effect's human culture does not differ significantly from modern cultures. Plus there is the additional context that Mass Effect is fiction created now, not an artifact of another culture from another time.
Often, science fiction serves as social commentary on the modern day, and Mass Effect is no different. I mean, sure they have other sapient species and can travel faster than light, but most of the concerns and issues brought up within the game's context are concerns and issues that exist in the modern day. Not all, obviously (I doubt anyone is concerned about the eventual Reaper invasion and we don't exactly have more advanced precursor civilizations to study).
So really, the idea that characters exist outside of the cultural context in which they're created is not a useful idea. It's not particularly valid, either. This is known as the fallacy of the excluded middle. You're focusing on the idea that everyone who complained was unreasonably offended, and excluding the idea that their reactions are genuine, honest reactions to seeing people like themselves reflected. I addressed the bolded question above. I actually came across a name for the fallacy you're invoking here, but sadly I can't remember it. The gist of it is that you're trying to use the setting to justify the writing, when the writing and the setting itself both exist as products of modern western society, and cannot exist outside of that context.
And your final sentence continues the false dilemma. There are a range of possible reactions to an infelicitous representation of a marginalized class of people. Painting the reactions you don't like as a single "feeling offended, assuming the role of the victim, and pointing fingers" reaction is a straw man.
Basically what I am saying is that if you want to make a genuinely convincing argument about this situation, you need to understand what people are complaining about. As far as I can tell, you don't.
Lets look at the conversation:
"What brought you out here to Andromeda?"
"Back home I was filling test-tubes in some dead-end lab..." This makes sense to the question being asked. The person felt unfilled in their work life and needed a change. Although travelling billions of light years in my opinion is quite drastic.
"People knew me as Stephan, but that was never who I was." No one asked this, and has nothing to do with what brought the person out to Andromeda. If anything, it is saying that the character wasn't accepted of who they were back home. If that is the case, it wouldn't have been casually shared as it is now. The other thing that doesn't fit is when her transformation happened. Did she wait till reaching Andromeda to get it, or was it done before/during the journey? If this is the future, with future technology, one would assume a person wouldn't have to wait till late in their adult life to have a transition.
I have done some writing, though not much recently, and dealt with some complaints along these lines. Mostly they involved a character who was an oversexed spinster who could turn any comment into double entendre. (I'm not claiming this was a deep character, but a fairly popular one.) Most complaints really showed that preachers and holy rollers have dirtier minds than most; even *I* didn't make some of the filthy connections they did, and I wrote half the dialog.
One of the actors/writers is gay and he suggested a character based on a former partner who had some interesting quirks; this was when the actor was in college in another state. Based on his descriptions, we realized we'd been handed a gift from the gods. We changed a few things to avoid libel, protect identities, enhance comedic effects, etc, but this was based on an actual person. John Inman's character from Are You Being Served? might or might not have been an influence as well. And did the LBGTQ community complain? By and large, no, they found the character amusing and tried to figure out who it really was. But certain advocate-types decided to complain to make hay and threatened to go to the FCC. Likewise, a certain preacher denounced us because he felt we were promoting a gay lifestyle by making a gay character sympathetic. (He kept having bizarre accidents through no fault of his own, most of which were true incidents.) I figured that, if we were getting complaints from humorless people on both ends of the political spectrum, we were doing something right. In the end we retired the character because dealing with the FCC was expensive and got management nervous, but had it been a stage show we probably would have continued.
We did drop a couple characters and alter others because of complaints. They complaints were reasonable, and in the end made for better characters. But ultimately, it was the decision of the writers and the cast, with the producer casting the tie-breaking vote if needed.
I assume people who complained, as a group, told Bioware what was wrong with the character. Bioware agreed, and are going to change the character.
If someone does have a complaint, it doesn't hurt to listen to it, and dismissing it can have a negative impact on your audience (esp. the parts of the audience that share the complaint). You may ultimately disagree with the complaints, and that's fine. Or you might take them under consideration and make a few changes.
I wouldn't assume that people who complained did so because they're humorless though. They may not appreciate the specific humor you wrote for the character, but they probably have a healthy sense of humor in general. There may be something about your character that they might find not only not funny, but possibly painful. And again, you don't have to agree with them, but why insult them?
There's a review of ME:A in the recent issue of the community magazine.
If she'd been a heterosexual woman who joined Andromeda because her fiance Stephan cheated on her and she wanted to forget him, bringing up said fiance at all - let alone in her first conversation - would be just as idiotic.
Computer games have bad writing? Who knew? Next they will be accusing soap operas of bad writing!!
"They don't get attacked for having bad writing." Jesus. Were you not around for the ending of Mass Effect 3? "Retake Mass Effect" doesn't ring any bells?
Of the top of my head, games which I've played in the last 12 months which have some very bad writing: Baldur's Gate, Pillars of Eternity, T:ToN, Divinity: Original Sin*, Ember*, NWN2, The Witcher*, Room 3.
*So bad I couldn't complete the game.
I mean, besides obvious marysuism of Geralt and embarassing sex cards.
And like there are also games like Neverwinter Nights - there was no end of complaints about the writing and story for the OC. The response was to produce better campaigns. Another game I recall getting a lot of complaints was Dungeon Siege (but that more for being able to play itself without player input). Morrowind was often criticized for having a standardized set of NPC responses that the majority of NPCs would draw from.
I have seen a lot of complaints about the writing in Torment: Tides of Numenera as well as the writing in Pillars of Eternity.
It is simply not true that games only get criticized if they misrepresent transgender people. You're cherry picking the two games that had such complaints, but even then both games had criticism that didn't necessarily have anything to do with the trans NPCs - Mass Effect: Andromeda's writing overall has received a lot of criticism, and I'm sure most people are by now aware of the facial animations. It is a bit more ambiguous with Siege of Dragonspear because a lot of the negative backlash that title received was prompted by people who hate having trans people in their video games at all, but there are genuinely people who didn't have any problem with Mizhena who hate the writing and are willing to say so.
Take PoE. There is one point in which
Even if you are talking about generally sub-par writing, as in the NWN OC, sure, there was much disappointment expressed, but again, no mass hysteria or demands for an apology.
Yup. I'm sure the lack of hysterics has nothing to do with "Mask of the Betrayer".
Given that Mask of the Betrayer was published for NWN2 in 2007, five years after and the NWNOC (2002), I would say that yes, the lack of hysterics was indeed completely unrelated. [/e twirls finger beside head]
Just a small conjecture seems to be "Bad writing is ok; bad writing on a hot topic is not ok."