Kotaku Interview regarding SoD and thoughts it brought up!
Stradlin
Member Posts: 142
I'd like to talk about SoD article/interview Kotaku, recently published!
One of the Beamdog devs said the following: “In the original there’s a lot of jokes at women’s expense. Or if not a lot, there’s a couple, like Safana was just a sex object in BG 1, and Jaheira was the nagging wife and that was played for comedy. We were able to say, ‘No, that’s not really the kind of story we want to make.’ In Siege of Dragonspear, Safana gets her own little storyline, she got a way better personality upgrade. If people don’t like that, then too bad.” "
If you go full out SJW Champion towards your own fiction and end up very worried about " representing women correctly",I feel quote above isn't a bad indication of place where you might end up. You end up feeling as if some fictional woman character being a total slut were some issue that needs to be " corrected". Like..are all women in fiction supposed to be righteous, perfect, powerful, resourceful, independent shining examples of modern first world feminist or something? All NPCs in Baldur's Gate are total caricatures. Many of them are quite far from any default of "optimal functionality" Most all of them come with some peculiar stand-out trait. None of them get much screen time or dialogue, so it understandably was deemed important to hammer some simple, huge personality trait through asap. As result, you have Cowards, Schizophrenics, Manic-Depressive, Playful, Overly dominant...etc. Well, Safana was a slut. I think as such, she fits the NPC parade quite well. I'd argue Baldur's Gate makes exceptionally GOOD example of a place where cleaning and washing them dirty womens would be unnecessary; BG features a very good cast of very strong, quite well portrayed women NPCs as it is. Is some combination of strong, independent and clever everything a fictional woman is allowed to be now?
Is it a bad thing to have jokes at women's expense? ( I can't really think of examples of this in BG..but it has been a while)
I feel stuff described in paragraph above is us suddenly approaching some 1950's Hollywood all over again. Are heroes or " good" characters (Female or otherwise, NPCs or otherwise) always supposed to be strong, pure or perfect? Is it bad thing by default if stuff like rampart sexism, slavery etc are portrayed as functional, integral, ordinary part of a fictional world, rather than as some devil-horned evil that is for player char to change?
I think G.R.R Martin does some great work in portraying females in fiction. Some women in Martin's stories do their utmost to be righteous and honorable. Some are clever, intelligent. some are dumb. Some are wicked or evil or weak. Some are strong or slutty or brave. Some use their charisma or guile or plotting to plow through the world, others spread their legs. Or any random combination of feats like ones listed above. In short, women in Martin's stories read as if they were human beings. Much like his men do. I think that's pretty cool.
In general, I feel there is often bit of a pitfall in the moment where it becomes evident writer(of a fiction) has an agenda to push rather than a story to tell. I like it if writers either focus on story or hide the agenda so well it doesn't stand out like a sore thumb.
Obviously much depends on what sort of a game you want to make. There are good places to push your agenda. There are bad places to push your agenda.
If your game was set in real world and included, say, as accurate portrayal as possible of 1960's US Universities and state-maintained racial segregation getting torn down, then it'd make all kinds of sense to inject real-world social commentary to your writing. If your game is set in high fantasy world like Forgotten Realms, then it mostly feels weird to see some very intentional real life social commentary sneaked in.
Obviously any and all fiction is essentially, maybe almost inevitably, a product of it's time. Fantasy is quite a bit more protected from this than, say, Scifi. We watch people of 1950s Hollywood portraying cowboys and indians of 1850s history and kinda shake our heads grinning. Come 2050, people will look at our popular culture and, with all the all cultural research and hindsight they'll afford and we lack, will find plenty to ridicule and question about our conduct. Having said that, I usually like it well if my fiction at least tries to avoid being representation of values of it's author as they were in 2016, rather than seeing it go head long embracing this.
One of the Beamdog devs said the following: “In the original there’s a lot of jokes at women’s expense. Or if not a lot, there’s a couple, like Safana was just a sex object in BG 1, and Jaheira was the nagging wife and that was played for comedy. We were able to say, ‘No, that’s not really the kind of story we want to make.’ In Siege of Dragonspear, Safana gets her own little storyline, she got a way better personality upgrade. If people don’t like that, then too bad.” "
If you go full out SJW Champion towards your own fiction and end up very worried about " representing women correctly",I feel quote above isn't a bad indication of place where you might end up. You end up feeling as if some fictional woman character being a total slut were some issue that needs to be " corrected". Like..are all women in fiction supposed to be righteous, perfect, powerful, resourceful, independent shining examples of modern first world feminist or something? All NPCs in Baldur's Gate are total caricatures. Many of them are quite far from any default of "optimal functionality" Most all of them come with some peculiar stand-out trait. None of them get much screen time or dialogue, so it understandably was deemed important to hammer some simple, huge personality trait through asap. As result, you have Cowards, Schizophrenics, Manic-Depressive, Playful, Overly dominant...etc. Well, Safana was a slut. I think as such, she fits the NPC parade quite well. I'd argue Baldur's Gate makes exceptionally GOOD example of a place where cleaning and washing them dirty womens would be unnecessary; BG features a very good cast of very strong, quite well portrayed women NPCs as it is. Is some combination of strong, independent and clever everything a fictional woman is allowed to be now?
Is it a bad thing to have jokes at women's expense? ( I can't really think of examples of this in BG..but it has been a while)
I feel stuff described in paragraph above is us suddenly approaching some 1950's Hollywood all over again. Are heroes or " good" characters (Female or otherwise, NPCs or otherwise) always supposed to be strong, pure or perfect? Is it bad thing by default if stuff like rampart sexism, slavery etc are portrayed as functional, integral, ordinary part of a fictional world, rather than as some devil-horned evil that is for player char to change?
I think G.R.R Martin does some great work in portraying females in fiction. Some women in Martin's stories do their utmost to be righteous and honorable. Some are clever, intelligent. some are dumb. Some are wicked or evil or weak. Some are strong or slutty or brave. Some use their charisma or guile or plotting to plow through the world, others spread their legs. Or any random combination of feats like ones listed above. In short, women in Martin's stories read as if they were human beings. Much like his men do. I think that's pretty cool.
In general, I feel there is often bit of a pitfall in the moment where it becomes evident writer(of a fiction) has an agenda to push rather than a story to tell. I like it if writers either focus on story or hide the agenda so well it doesn't stand out like a sore thumb.
Obviously much depends on what sort of a game you want to make. There are good places to push your agenda. There are bad places to push your agenda.
If your game was set in real world and included, say, as accurate portrayal as possible of 1960's US Universities and state-maintained racial segregation getting torn down, then it'd make all kinds of sense to inject real-world social commentary to your writing. If your game is set in high fantasy world like Forgotten Realms, then it mostly feels weird to see some very intentional real life social commentary sneaked in.
Obviously any and all fiction is essentially, maybe almost inevitably, a product of it's time. Fantasy is quite a bit more protected from this than, say, Scifi. We watch people of 1950s Hollywood portraying cowboys and indians of 1850s history and kinda shake our heads grinning. Come 2050, people will look at our popular culture and, with all the all cultural research and hindsight they'll afford and we lack, will find plenty to ridicule and question about our conduct. Having said that, I usually like it well if my fiction at least tries to avoid being representation of values of it's author as they were in 2016, rather than seeing it go head long embracing this.
Post edited by Stradlin on
3
Comments
I'm not sure what it has to do with things I speak of. I Kinda assume you haven't actually read anything said in OP or in interview I link to. ;p
I do admit I haven't read the link and just skimmed through your post, but that's mainly because I'm tired and playing SoD right now. Plus it's always better when discussion is brought into one place.
Article I'm linking to isn't a review. None of my sentiments speak or adress or critique SoD as a whole. My post has no place anywhere in the topic you linked to.
As much as I respect your desire to share your sentiments about my thread, cursory inspection of what is being said would be helpful before commenting or condemning it.
I meant no harm by forwarding you to that thread. Please accept my most sincere apologies if I've come off as aloof.
I keep looking forward to actual discussion about this. Posts about where this topic belongs to aren't that exciting.
Edit.
RE:comment below
I should just learn to read;p
I found her to be overly antagonistic and I truly don't understand what she finds sexist about the characters - let alone the game in general. It felt like she was using some kind of in-crowd definition of sexism or something.
But I feel like I'm repeating myself. I wrote this reply earlier today - which is mostly on the same topic.
Branwen while extremely useful and sufficient in her own right, i felt she definitely could have been fleshed out more.
I found Neera fun for the romance, but aside form that she can be a bit annoying, with what i'm assuming is a wizard's form of ADD.
Aeirie is ok, but i find her annoying too for the same reasons Jaheria does, too timid and afraid to speak her mind, although she does make up for it with her proficiency in arcane/priest spells
.
I never actually played with Safana in Bg1, but absolutely despise her for her arrogance and over all vainness in SoD and became rather agitated that i could not find a replacement rogue throughout the rest of the game. While Corwin on the other hand i found alot more tolerable and i actually enjoyed traveling with her after her initial off-putishness wore off and she opened up more.
As far as villains go, Bodhi was really the only memorable female villain but she is definitely one i that wont be forgotten.
Let's look at what she said:
“In the original there’s a lot of jokes at women’s expense. "
- I personally don't recall the original games having "lots of jokes" about women at all so I find this statement odd. I've played the games dozens of times and even programmed mods but can't say I've poured through every line of dialogue or anything. I can remember no egregious instances ( I'll discuss her examples of Safana and Jaheira in the next part).
I do totally get in general that characterization of women is an issue in entertainment and video games. The classic "damsel in distress" situation or scantily clad artwork are examples of the way women and men are treated differently in fiction. I personally don't recall the original being out of line with any other video games and there are actually quite a few female NPCs available with different motivations and personalities in the game. I'd say there are even more female NPC options than most games.
"...Safana was just a sex object in BG 1"
"...In Siege of Dragonspear, Safana gets her own little storyline, she got a way better personality upgrade."
I was not a huge Safana fan, I found her voiceset tiresome. I can understand how in making a sequel you could give things to do since there's not a lot there to begin with. Recharacterizing Safana is fine it's not hard to get "way better" since BG1 was not very immersive with NPCs compared to BG2. Personally I'd probably not put her in the game at all.
I do not think she was "just a sex object". She doesn't have much of a plot in BG1, but I remember her characterized as a woman who used her flirtatious nature to get what she wants. She wants your help doing something and the way she tries to get it is by buttering up the men. That is how she attained action to get what she wants: her sensuality was her empowerment. To me that was her portrayal not a one-note "sex object".
"and Jaheira was the nagging wife"
BG1 Jaheira was a druid with strong opinions. She dominated Khalid and all but that is also partly his fault for being a very weak person. The thing is she wasn't just a pain to Khalid. I'm glad they tweaked her personality in BG2 because she was highly annoying to be around for everyone (not just her husband).
"If people don’t like that, then too bad.” "
This is a pretty combative statement. It's all well and good to say things like that in certain situations (and certainly people say things like that all the time) but in the context of an interview for a product you are hoping to sell it's not a good idea. People that buy these games are Baldur's Gate fans, why attempt to antagonize your fan base? Trent said that he understands the ardours of interviews and chalked that up to that and I'm willing to give slack there. There is room for offense from that statement.
Too bad for us (my problem is not with BG, I'm very happy with SJ in games) we either make our own games (RPG Maker is great, you can also mod Infinity Engine, NWN1, NWN2 and a lot other RPG engines to make your own adventures) or we can accept whatever other people do
Times are changing, while I love the direction Social Justice is going I hate the direction gameplay is going, the only (new) RPG game I enjoyed in years is Pillars of Eternity, and there is nothing I can do (except, as I said, create my own stuff). We can complain (I do, a lot) but is dreamy/delirious to expect that developers change what they do because of your complaint, they change some things but the overall direction is set and all we can do is watch everything we love turn to dust and hope that someone else creates something the way we want.
See, diferent problems, same drama: World changes. Some things change, others die, fortunately we do too.
As Darwin explained we either adapt or disappear.
Edit: Especially since Beamdog would likely not even exist if there weren't such amendment fans of the old Bioware games
Anyone who says they are going to put something in an expansion to a beloved game "whether you like it or not" is saying something argumentative and combative to the fans of the game.
If a writer wants to be a social justice warrior in games, by all means, they should. Any feedback about that content should be listened with humbleness, but not against the content itself.
"Mizhena sux" is ok, "Mizhena should be better written" is ok, "Mizhena is too blunt" is ok but "KEEP THIS STUFF AWAY FROM MY GAMES" demands a "If you don't like it too bad". And she is being as polite as a shy japanese schoolgirl compared to how I would answer.
You can't (and shouldn't) control what an artist produces, I'm happy Beamdog backed her up, the moment the industry bends to "fans" we are all doomed.
Tiax, Quayle, Minsc, Xzar, Montaron, Edwin, Xan, Kagain, Yesslick, and Khalid are hardly good representations of males either. Most of them are insane, dumb, or sociopaths.
Edit: and Beamdog backed her up how? By saying "please dont harass our employee's" or by removing Minsc's line and agreeing to change Mizhena's dialogue?