I am actually playing quite a bit of Assassin's Creed Odyssey at the moment, and as such I have watched alot of videos on it. And yes, there are legitimately people who are pissed at the female character option. Not just that you can pick her, but that she (her name is Kassandra) seems to be the canon protagonist for the game, and that she has much better voice acting.
Now let's think about this. There have been 11 Assassin's Creed games. In 10 of them, the protagonist has been a male. In ONE game (the most recent), you have the OPTION to choose to play as a female. You can still be the male (Alexios) if you choose to. And people are still up in arms about it, precisely because of this all-encompassing anti-PC mindset where ANY inclusion of a non-male, non-white, or non-straight character is seen as some kind of quota or propaganda effort. Despite the fact that 92% of the protagonist options in the series are male, the ONE female option is seen as the problem. How does anyone reach a point in their life where this is an issue??
As I mentioned before, this is not the first time I have seen something as simple and time-honored as being able to select the gender of you main character has been derided as a "SJW" position. It was the first conversation point I encountered when looking into the game "Prey" before it was released. The argument was that being able to choose a female character was against the "spirit" of the 2006 game it was based on. As if choosing a gender hasn't been a staple of video games since the first Wizardry. Hell, in the first Might and Magic game, I don't even think you can complete the game without at least one female character, and having an all-female party actually grants pretty significant stat benefits. Point being, stuff that has been commonplace in games since before I was even born is all of a sudden seen as a feminist plot to emasculate men.
In regards to movies, go read some of the criticism of the new Star Wars movies, and you'll find that a good chunk of it focuses on the diversity of the cast, essentially deriding them as affirmative action hires. In regards to James Bond, the British actor Idris Elba is often floated as someone who would make a great 007, but the very IDEA that James Bond could be black for ONCE in the franchise's history is anathema to large swaths of people. The Ghostbusters reboot wasn't derided because it was a bad movie (it was, but that isn't the point). It was crucified long before anyone had seen it simply because it had an all-female cast by DEFAULT.
At least every other game I buy on Steam has some thread in the discussion forums of someone asking something along the lines of "I'm interested in this game, but before I buy it can anyone tell me if it is full of SJW indoctrination". It simply never fails. Hell, I saw someone asking this question about a niche Early Access MMO I have purchased called "Project: Gorgon". I frequent the discussion threads a couple times a week to see how the updates for the game are going, and I saw someone create a thread saying he liked how the game looked, but he wasn't going to buy it because one of the hundreds of skills you can level up in the game is called "Gender Studies". Which, for one thing, is an actual field of academic research, and for another, is not implemented in the game in remotely the way this poster thought it was. I mean, there is ridiculous, and then there is this stuff.
The main thrust of this whole "SJW" argument seemed to be that people were tired of being called sexist or racist. I mean, yeah, fine, I suppose no one would want to be called that. But when you see the overwhelming reaction on internet communication forums (because that is the only place this discussion takes place) from people who have a problem with "Social Justice Warrirors", oftentimes their words and behavior reveals that the reasons they were being called sexist and racist were perfectly valid to begin with. I mean, has anyone ever taken a peak at the discussion threads on the RPG Codex?? To say nothing of (as has been mentioned) pretty much ANY Youtube video.
Assassin Creed syndicate had a male/female protagonist.
But ya, places like Codex and 4Chan allowed this attitude to fester and grow, and show people “oh others think like me too, it must be right,” it allowed them to organize and it allowed people who may not agree with their stance be bullied out of the conversation and if a person didn’t want to be labeled as something negative (because majority of them are insecure) you’d reform to what’s being presented.
That mentality has now seeped into other parts of the internet.
My opinion is to ignore it. If someone won’t buy a game because it has “Gender Studies” they don’t have to. They’ll eventually run out of things to play as they realize the world doesn’t revolve around their preferences.
Yeah... I've heard people express some similar sentiments here and there. "I have nothing against [insert minority group]; I just don't think there's a legitimate reason they should exist in video games." There's this idea that there needs to be some sort of justification in order for a given minority to show up in a game.
@Kamigoroshi I'm still confused as to what was "changed" about Safana. As far as I can tell, she is the exact same character she was in BG1, just with more lines.
@ThacoBell Again, there hasn't exaclty been much else posted by the Beamdog staff about "what" or "how much" Safana's initial character was modified for her comeback. All we know for certain from that interview is that she supposedly got "a way better personality upgrade". Meaning changes definitely took place on the planning board. The details of that however are only known to Beamdog itself.
To me it does kind of go back to this attitude that people view their entertainment options as an "escape" from real-life. And that's great, we all do that to some extent. But there is an overwhelming feeling among SOME (certainly not all) that their entertainment options should be devoid of politics. But that's not what they really mean. They are really talking about being shielded from politics they disagree with. This is especially true when you see any discussion about an American athlete taking ANY sort of political or social stance whatsoever. I'd say sports fans in this regard (especially with the recent NFL anthem controversy) are by far the worst offenders in this regard. Their "shut up and dance for me" attitude toward predominantly African-American athletes just reeks of a total lack of self-awareness and entitlement.
I mean, I am aware of MANY entertainers whose political views I find fairly horrible, and it doesn't stop me from consuming that media. Johnny Ramone was an almost militant defender of Ronald Reagan, but the Ramones are still one of my favorite bands of all-time. I still think conservative actor Jon Voight is great in "Varsity Blues". I can still listen to a decent Rush song even though alot of them are about libertarian nonsense. I mean hell, the song "Bodies" by the Sex Pistols is so anti-abortion it's like the audio equivalent of bombing a woman's health clinic, but it's also a pretty awesome punk rock song. I don't know how people can consume art based on their political beliefs. It would be exhausting just trying to sort out what you can and can't take in and experience.
The same thing applies to people who have done HORRIBLE things. Does Roman Polanski's rape charge make "The Pianist" any less of a great film?? Does Phil Spector's murder conviction change the fact that he was the greatest producer in the history of popular music?? I really don't think it does, and I don't think it's necessary to boycott those works. I mean, most people like at least SOMETHING Led Zeppelin has done. Jimmy Page was flying around the world with a 14-year old concubine for a good portion of that decade. No one calls him a statutory rapist, but if you apply any other standard to him other than "that's just how rock n' roll was in the 70s" (which is sort of true), he would be.
@jjstraka34 I get what you are saying, but really, that is just ridiculous. Do arguments become valid simply on the ground some wa...ne individual think they are? Is like, if I say "I hate the color blue" and someone makes a game in which you can put blue clothes on the player character, is that game then political? NOOOO!!! I fail to see how people getting upset over something which isn't political makes it political.
P.S. I do not understand how every other poster missed this, but in the original BG, Safana is not a nymphomaniac, she is a tease. She wants you to think you can have her, but she is just playing you. Basically, she puts you in the friend zone.
This isn't a hard one. SJW is clearly pejorative term. It doesn't matter what definitions the people peddling the pejorative come up with if, if no one to whom the term applies uses it in an unironic sense and the people affixed with the descriptor dislike it, it's a pejorative plain and simple.
I can come up with a nice definition of "right wing wingnut" and show you photos of people with "(right arrow image) (wingnut image)" bumper stickers but that doesn't mean that mean that it's what conservatives call themselves.
It's just an updating of "politically correct" you *might* be able to find one or two people who were applying the term to themselves in an unironic fashion before it became a pejorative but it is entirely false to say that pc (or SJW) was in widespread use before the right picked on it.
Issue two
As others have said Safana is the same. Her upgrade came in the form of a third dimension. We learned something about her relationship with her mother and gained a bit of insight into why she uses her sexuality to manipulate men -- we got a peek under the mask.
I *never* used Safana in BG1 -- so irritating. But in SoD she's a fun NPC . . .
@Kamigoroshi That's my point. No one even knows what was changed by looking at the character. People are upset because someone said she was changed. That would be me sitting down to eat a plate of pancakes and saying they were delicious, only to have it pointed out that they were gluten free, and suddenly being outraged at it. I couldn't tell the difference and quite enjoyed it, but suddenly its objectionable because somebody said it was different.
@DrakeICN "P.S. I do not understand how every other poster missed this, but in the original BG, Safana is not a nymphomaniac, she is a tease. She wants you to think you can have her, but she is just playing you. Basically, she puts you in the friend zone."
I don't understand how you see this. What in game gave this impression?
@ThacoBell Yes and no. Players were first alienated because SoD Safana did not match their own intrepretation of BG1 Safana. Which is understandable, given that different writers were involved in their creations and the vanilla material was rather limited in depth of the NPC's.
From what I saw over the decades, some players thought of pre-SoD Safana as a Femme Fatale. Others thought of her as a flirt who liked nightly companionship a tad too much. And then a couple others viewed her as pretty much the female Eldoth. But I'd wager that more Safana Variants exist in people's head than that.
Being then told that Beamdog changed said character "for reasons" did not make them feel any better about it. Which, I do agree, is a pointless thing to feel.
@Kamigoroshi That's my point. No one even knows what was changed by looking at the character. People are upset because someone said she was changed. That would be me sitting down to eat a plate of pancakes and saying they were delicious, only to have it pointed out that they were gluten free, and suddenly being outraged at it. I couldn't tell the difference and quite enjoyed it, but suddenly its objectionable because somebody said it was different.
@DrakeICN "P.S. I do not understand how every other poster missed this, but in the original BG, Safana is not a nymphomaniac, she is a tease. She wants you to think you can have her, but she is just playing you. Basically, she puts you in the friend zone."
I don't understand how you see this. What in game gave this impression?
The way I see it, is that it wasn't so much her writings that caused problems for Beamdog back then. But the way how she worded the publicity of SoD.
Exactly this. There wasn't anything to be triggered by with the writing of Sod. It can be considered sub-par or whatever, but nothing there deserved a backlash in my opinion.
The main reasons for the backlash were the interviews, which triggered a lot of people to feel the need to dig in and find something to be agitated. If there weren't those unfortunately worded interviews, probably nobody would pay attention to a character who is implied to be a transgender, personality of Safana or what Minsc says when clicked 50 times or whatever. I mean who cares, don't those people know that transgender characters exist? They do, and they live with it in real life. No reason not to accept it in SOD as well, if only they didn't perceive a hidden agenda based on those interviews.
Considering them as the enemy is a wrong approach, because I believe most of those people were actually BG fans too, even if they wrote reviews without having played SOD. Right approach is understanding why they felt the need to even bother with doing that. Empathy is the key word here.
This is the main problem with SJW mentality. Based on what I have seen, most of them so fanatically believe they are right that whomever doesn't agree with them can be labeled a bigot, racist, sexist, etc., and become their enemy. Another perspective can't even be considered, it's absurd. They don't understand that this attitude has a lot of similarities with alt-right or far right, which they hate so much. The real enemy here is self-righteousness.
This is the main problem with alt-right mentality. Based on what I have seen, most of them so fanatically believe they are right that whomever doesn't agree with them can be labeled SJW, PC, NPC etc., and become their enemy. Another perspective can't even be considered, it's absurd. They don't understand that this attitude has a lot of similarities with the SJW, which they hate so much. The real enemy here is self-righteousness.
Fixed!
lol no I know you shat on both sides in your post, I just found it ridiculous that you believe we should try to empathize with the alt-right. I mean, if you in your heart believe these people have critical thinking skills, then go ahead and waste your time I suppose.
But ya, places like Codex and 4Chan allowed this attitude to fester and grow, and show people “oh others think like me too, it must be right,” it allowed them to organize and it allowed people who may not agree with their stance be bullied out of the conversation and if a person didn’t want to be labeled as something negative (because majority of them are insecure) you’d reform to what’s being presented.
That mentality has now seeped into other parts of the internet.
Thing is, replace Codex and 4chan with something else, and you'll have 100% accurate description of the radical left.
lol no I know you shat on both sides in your post, I just found it ridiculous that you believe we should try to empathize with the alt-right. I mean, if you in your heart believe these people have critical thinking skills, then go ahead and waste your time I suppose.
Normally you'd be correct, but the conflict has been growing out of control, so unless you want to see it keep escalating then it's in your interest to not, as you've put it, "shit" on the side you disagree with. Or, on a related note, use the terms that may unnecessarily trigger them - if the left may find "black monkey" racist and "trap" transphobic (regardless of whether it was the intent), then so may the right find "male aggression" misandrist. Consideration only means something when it goes both ways.
PS I also strongly suspect this war is a contributing factor why the social stuff is so often called shoehorned/hamfisted/quota-filled/etc. into the media. When you can tell the creator is making a political statement, even if they're not fully aware of it themselves - it's a subconscious defensive reaction. As opposed to it being something they genuinely liked and wanted to make for themselves, like all art should be. If you look at e.g. Japanese media, you may find plenty of yuri, yaoi and other things, yet at no point does it feel the authors were political about what they create. In fact, I've often heard opinions by non-liberal sources that the Western left would win far more sympathy from them if it tried to mimic what Japanese do. I guess it's because the latter don't feel the need to be defensive about their values. The only problem here is that both sides are equally responsible for continuation of this war that makes them so defensive it seeps into their subconscious, or at least not putting effort into stopping it.
"Manhood 1.0 is absolute crap and only ends up with emotionally retarded males who cannot handle emotions or more complex relationships. I've been struggling with anger outbursts all my life becuase I was never taught to deal with it in a mature way. Happyness, hornyness and rage were pretty much the three only feelings a man should feel. All the intricate feelings ranging from sadness, to emptyness, to lonelyness etc are replaced by rage, anger and hate."
You do know exactly the same can be said about women?
Some women are more aggressive in social situations (ask any law enforcement when the pubs turn out), some women handle emotions incredibly badly, some women are not taught to handle emotions in a mature way, some women bitch, ostracize, bully and scheme far more than men and never let things drop. About the only difference is that some women are never happy because there's always something wrong with the world rather than with themselves.
How about instead of pointing fingers and saying this sex or that sex has all the bad, people start to admit there are a lot of people who everybody would be better off crossing the road to avoid until they learn how to behave.
You make two mistakes here: 1: You try to compare individuals' behavior with systemic behavior. 2: You immediately feel compelled to point your finger "But what about THOSE ppl who ALSO do wrong!!!11"
The first one is a classic mistake many ppl do who haven't really read up on facts and is used all too often as counter-arguments. I spoke of manhood, how men systematically are brought up to embody a set of ideals that are supposedly "Manly". This doesn't mean some men are very different from those ideals, it's the difference between a society structures and individuals. I won't bother linking you to facts about this though since you discarded my last link as pointless and didn't bother looking at it seems, but there are tons of academics who can witness to this. You know, ppl who have actually studied this for years and are promenent in their field of work and don't base their arguments on what they've read in forums or on emotions.
Secondly, I never said anything about women, my whole post was about men and social structures making men emotionally inadept to handle more complex feelings. So maybe ask yourself why you felt the need to jump up on your horse, pick up your lance and start attacking the windmills, ay?
Personally, I think that we should be somewhat tolerant patient towards the behavior in young men. If you are young, male, the worlds sucks, you have problems fitting in, you are scared about your future and have testosterone raging through your system... and is tossed into an environment with other men most of which experience the same (such as high school) and who penalize each other for being "wimpy"... I mean yeah, if you drop a rock, it will not fall sideways, levitate or take off upwards, it will drop. Now, the male psychology is not bound by laws of physics the way gravity is, but the behavior is none the less to a certain extent expectable. Society should help the young men that display it and cannot grow out of it by themselves escape it (because the behavior have no place in society save for criminals, the military and maybe for athletes; you can't be an accountant and pick a fight with your coworkers over whose cubicle gets to sit next to the nubile debutante's cubicle who just start working on the same floor, and coping with it using passive aggressiveness is almost worse) but that it will be there... I mean, there is no cure for that! It's like complaining that it's raining.
The way I see it, is that it wasn't so much her writings that caused problems for Beamdog back then. But the way how she worded the publicity of SoD.
The main reasons for the backlash were the interviews, which triggered a lot of people to feel the need to dig in and find something to be agitated. If there weren't those unfortunately worded interviews, probably nobody would pay attention to a character who is implied to be a transgender, personality of Safana or what Minsc says when clicked 50 times or whatever. I mean who cares, don't those people know that transgender characters exist? They do, and they live with it in real life. No reason not to accept it in SOD as well, if only they didn't perceive a hidden agenda based on those interviews.
Have to disagree. The DEV was just caught up in a moment. There was shift in the zeitgeist, a backlash against the gains of feminism and against the increasing tolerance of trans people. If I had spent more time trying to understand the motivations of the anti SOD crowd I would have been able to predict the rise of Trump and the popularity of prophets of natural masculinity (looking at you Jordan Peterson).
You combine this with the -- actively looking to be offended -- culture of the chans and you have gamergate.
The DEV who made those comments was a geek girl and a feminist and this offended them. (that crowd loves the gamer girls that embrace the masculine norms of the community but *hates* the geek girls who reject that culture)
Yes, the DEV made those innocuous comments but, like the trans NPC itself, they represent a few isolated comments in an ocean of words. She had much more to say about making bards a playable class and, while SoD isn't as good as the originals, SoD has the best bards . . .
A few things struck me about the youtube channels of the SoD 'controversy':
1) it was crystal clear that most of the commenters hadn't played the game
2) many of the recommended videos on the sidebar were to games that catered to a ginormous breast fetish
3) In the few reviews that weren't by beards or neckbeards the sidebar recommended that I watch: a) some evolutionary psychology rant, b) an all meat diet or c) a hunting video
It's a community that fears that feminism will destroy one of the last enclaves of traditional, 'natural' masculinity. This is why they are offended by trans people but okay with the bisexual half-orc, the half-orc confirms a culture of masculinity while a few words from a minor NPC threatens it.
TL;DR -- its about a community looking to be offended, not anything the DEV said.
The references are gender studies journals. I would hesitate to call that science. It is more like political ideology. Most university course descriptions for it focus on intersectionality, which is anything but empirical.
So yesterday someone replied to a comment I had left on a youtube video a long time ago. The video was from a Swedish amateur production of Jesus Christ Superstar where the priest Annas (a male character) was played by a woman. And people in the comments complained about the historical inaccuracy of a woman in that role. So I had left a comment pointing out that Jesus Christ Superstar has never been about historical accuracy in any way (should be obvious from the title and the freaking fighter jets in the 1973 movie) and that the character Annas has been interpreted in tons of different ways without much complaint.
And now someone replied that it apparently wasn't about historical accuracy after all - but a woman shouldn't play Annas because it's feminist propaganda, it's agenda pushing and so on.
Now I wouldn't have a problem discussing feminism, racism, social justice and all that with people who have different views than I. I do try to be understanding of other people's perspective. But when people are at the point where they think some amateur theater group from a small town in Sweden is involved in some feminist conspiracy to emasculate the western world? When they think a woman shouldn't be allowed to sing a song that is usually sung by a man because it's propaganda and pushing a hidden agenda? Where do I even begin to discuss anything at all with someone like that?
And since I'm a Swedish man myself, I'll often hear that I've just been brainwashed/emasculated by the horrors of Swedish feminism. Or that I don't actually have these opinions, but have some kind of ulterior motive. Hard to discuss with someone who immediately reduces you to "sheeple" or "you just want to get laid".
So yesterday someone replied to a comment I had left on a youtube video a long time ago. The video was from a Swedish amateur production of Jesus Christ Superstar where the priest Annas (a male character) was played by a woman. And people in the comments complained about the historical inaccuracy of a woman in that role. So I had left a comment pointing out that Jesus Christ Superstar has never been about historical accuracy in any way (should be obvious from the title and the freaking fighter jets in the 1973 movie) and that the character Annas has been interpreted in tons of different ways without much complaint.
And now someone replied that it apparently wasn't about historical accuracy after all - but a woman shouldn't play Annas because it's feminist propaganda, it's agenda pushing and so on.
Now I wouldn't have a problem discussing feminism, racism, social justice and all that with people who have different views than I. I do try to be understanding of other people's perspective. But when people are at the point where they think some amateur theater group from a small town in Sweden is involved in some feminist conspiracy to emasculate the western world? When they think a woman shouldn't be allowed to sing a song that is usually sung by a man because it's propaganda and pushing a hidden agenda? Where do I even begin to discuss anything at all with someone like that?
And since I'm a Swedish man myself, I'll often hear that I've just been brainwashed/emasculated by the horrors of Swedish feminism. Or that I don't actually have these opinions, but have some kind of ulterior motive. Hard to discuss with someone who immediately reduces you to "sheeple" or "you just want to get laid".
That's silly. I also wanted to comment that I've seen a Swedish language production of the play at Åbo Svenska Teatern, it was fun. These people might be taking it a bit too seriously.
It's stupid, I agree, but some people (well, s lot of people) take religion way too seriously. Can't laugh at religion because people (certain people) will take offense. I mean, there are certain passages in Paul's letters and acts which imply female preachers, but for some people that is just a bridge too far these days.
It's stupid, I agree, but some people (well, s lot of people) take religion way too seriously. Can't laugh at religion because people (certain people) will take offense. I mean, there are certain passages in Paul's letters and acts which imply female preachers, but for some people that is just a bridge too far these days.
Oh, the problem wasn't that it was a female priest. A woman playing a man's role was the problem. In a way, I regret that I ever even commented as if they cared about historical accuracy in any way.
This is true. Religion is deadly serious to a lot of people.
I find your comment disrespectful! You are just like the gov't meddling with my religious freedom! Every time I kidnap and strap down my neighbor in preparation for showing my respects to Huitzilopochtli, the coppers show up and demand that I release him! When will this oppression ever end
This is true. Religion is deadly serious to a lot of people.
I find your comment disrespectful! You are just like the gov't meddling with my religious freedom! Every time I kidnap and strap down my neighbor in preparation for showing my respects to Huitzilopochtli, the coppers show up and demand that I release him! When will this oppression ever end
i just had to check if Huitzilopochtli was an actual aztec/mayan deity or if you had just slapped the keyboard and went with it. Kudos for using a real name!
Having said that my internal skeptic is kicking in making me suspicious of the note.
Whoever wrote that note has the your / you're rule *exactly* wrong. They use 'your' when they should use 'you're' and vice versa. Given that rule is the one that really sets grammarian's teeth on edge, the note seems perfectly designed to upset people. Perhaps a bit too perfect?
Not saying I can divine anything but it just seems a bit too easy of a target . . .
Having said that my internal skeptic is kicking in making me suspicious of the note.
Whoever wrote that note has the your / you're rule *exactly* wrong. They use 'your' when they should use 'you're' and vice versa. Given that rule is the one that really sets grammarian's teeth on edge, the note seems perfectly designed to upset people. Perhaps a bit too perfect?
Not saying I can divine anything but it just seems a bit too easy of a target . . .
Not to mention this is the kind of claim that is impossible to verify, thus my inner sceptic is going 4-alarm. My mom, dad and sister are all Evangelical Trump supporters and they would never treat somebody this way. My dad is such a good tipper that it pisses my mom off! I call bs on who really wrote this note (assuming it's even authentic). No real Christian would do this...
Edit: Incidentally, my sister is a full-time psyche-ward nurse and my mom was a teacher for 30 years (now retired).
Comments
Now let's think about this. There have been 11 Assassin's Creed games. In 10 of them, the protagonist has been a male. In ONE game (the most recent), you have the OPTION to choose to play as a female. You can still be the male (Alexios) if you choose to. And people are still up in arms about it, precisely because of this all-encompassing anti-PC mindset where ANY inclusion of a non-male, non-white, or non-straight character is seen as some kind of quota or propaganda effort. Despite the fact that 92% of the protagonist options in the series are male, the ONE female option is seen as the problem. How does anyone reach a point in their life where this is an issue??
As I mentioned before, this is not the first time I have seen something as simple and time-honored as being able to select the gender of you main character has been derided as a "SJW" position. It was the first conversation point I encountered when looking into the game "Prey" before it was released. The argument was that being able to choose a female character was against the "spirit" of the 2006 game it was based on. As if choosing a gender hasn't been a staple of video games since the first Wizardry. Hell, in the first Might and Magic game, I don't even think you can complete the game without at least one female character, and having an all-female party actually grants pretty significant stat benefits. Point being, stuff that has been commonplace in games since before I was even born is all of a sudden seen as a feminist plot to emasculate men.
In regards to movies, go read some of the criticism of the new Star Wars movies, and you'll find that a good chunk of it focuses on the diversity of the cast, essentially deriding them as affirmative action hires. In regards to James Bond, the British actor Idris Elba is often floated as someone who would make a great 007, but the very IDEA that James Bond could be black for ONCE in the franchise's history is anathema to large swaths of people. The Ghostbusters reboot wasn't derided because it was a bad movie (it was, but that isn't the point). It was crucified long before anyone had seen it simply because it had an all-female cast by DEFAULT.
At least every other game I buy on Steam has some thread in the discussion forums of someone asking something along the lines of "I'm interested in this game, but before I buy it can anyone tell me if it is full of SJW indoctrination". It simply never fails. Hell, I saw someone asking this question about a niche Early Access MMO I have purchased called "Project: Gorgon". I frequent the discussion threads a couple times a week to see how the updates for the game are going, and I saw someone create a thread saying he liked how the game looked, but he wasn't going to buy it because one of the hundreds of skills you can level up in the game is called "Gender Studies". Which, for one thing, is an actual field of academic research, and for another, is not implemented in the game in remotely the way this poster thought it was. I mean, there is ridiculous, and then there is this stuff.
The main thrust of this whole "SJW" argument seemed to be that people were tired of being called sexist or racist. I mean, yeah, fine, I suppose no one would want to be called that. But when you see the overwhelming reaction on internet communication forums (because that is the only place this discussion takes place) from people who have a problem with "Social Justice Warrirors", oftentimes their words and behavior reveals that the reasons they were being called sexist and racist were perfectly valid to begin with. I mean, has anyone ever taken a peak at the discussion threads on the RPG Codex?? To say nothing of (as has been mentioned) pretty much ANY Youtube video.
But ya, places like Codex and 4Chan allowed this attitude to fester and grow, and show people “oh others think like me too, it must be right,” it allowed them to organize and it allowed people who may not agree with their stance be bullied out of the conversation and if a person didn’t want to be labeled as something negative (because majority of them are insecure) you’d reform to what’s being presented.
That mentality has now seeped into other parts of the internet.
My opinion is to ignore it. If someone won’t buy a game because it has “Gender Studies” they don’t have to. They’ll eventually run out of things to play as they realize the world doesn’t revolve around their preferences.
I mean, I am aware of MANY entertainers whose political views I find fairly horrible, and it doesn't stop me from consuming that media. Johnny Ramone was an almost militant defender of Ronald Reagan, but the Ramones are still one of my favorite bands of all-time. I still think conservative actor Jon Voight is great in "Varsity Blues". I can still listen to a decent Rush song even though alot of them are about libertarian nonsense. I mean hell, the song "Bodies" by the Sex Pistols is so anti-abortion it's like the audio equivalent of bombing a woman's health clinic, but it's also a pretty awesome punk rock song. I don't know how people can consume art based on their political beliefs. It would be exhausting just trying to sort out what you can and can't take in and experience.
The same thing applies to people who have done HORRIBLE things. Does Roman Polanski's rape charge make "The Pianist" any less of a great film?? Does Phil Spector's murder conviction change the fact that he was the greatest producer in the history of popular music?? I really don't think it does, and I don't think it's necessary to boycott those works. I mean, most people like at least SOMETHING Led Zeppelin has done. Jimmy Page was flying around the world with a 14-year old concubine for a good portion of that decade. No one calls him a statutory rapist, but if you apply any other standard to him other than "that's just how rock n' roll was in the 70s" (which is sort of true), he would be.
P.S. I do not understand how every other poster missed this, but in the original BG, Safana is not a nymphomaniac, she is a tease. She wants you to think you can have her, but she is just playing you. Basically, she puts you in the friend zone.
Issue one
This isn't a hard one. SJW is clearly pejorative term. It doesn't matter what definitions the people peddling the pejorative come up with if, if no one to whom the term applies uses it in an unironic sense and the people affixed with the descriptor dislike it, it's a pejorative plain and simple.
I can come up with a nice definition of "right wing wingnut" and show you photos of people with "(right arrow image) (wingnut image)" bumper stickers but that doesn't mean that mean that it's what conservatives call themselves.
It's just an updating of "politically correct" you *might* be able to find one or two people who were applying the term to themselves in an unironic fashion before it became a pejorative but it is entirely false to say that pc (or SJW) was in widespread use before the right picked on it.
Issue two
As others have said Safana is the same. Her upgrade came in the form of a third dimension. We learned something about her relationship with her mother and gained a bit of insight into why she uses her sexuality to manipulate men -- we got a peek under the mask.
I *never* used Safana in BG1 -- so irritating. But in SoD she's a fun NPC . . .
@DrakeICN "P.S. I do not understand how every other poster missed this, but in the original BG, Safana is not a nymphomaniac, she is a tease. She wants you to think you can have her, but she is just playing you. Basically, she puts you in the friend zone."
I don't understand how you see this. What in game gave this impression?
From what I saw over the decades, some players thought of pre-SoD Safana as a Femme Fatale. Others thought of her as a flirt who liked nightly companionship a tad too much. And then a couple others viewed her as pretty much the female Eldoth. But I'd wager that more Safana Variants exist in people's head than that.
Being then told that Beamdog changed said character "for reasons" did not make them feel any better about it. Which, I do agree, is a pointless thing to feel.
https://funnyjunk.com/Snl+chris+farley+columbian+decaffeinated+coffee+crystals/movies/6357624/
The main reasons for the backlash were the interviews, which triggered a lot of people to feel the need to dig in and find something to be agitated. If there weren't those unfortunately worded interviews, probably nobody would pay attention to a character who is implied to be a transgender, personality of Safana or what Minsc says when clicked 50 times or whatever. I mean who cares, don't those people know that transgender characters exist? They do, and they live with it in real life. No reason not to accept it in SOD as well, if only they didn't perceive a hidden agenda based on those interviews.
Considering them as the enemy is a wrong approach, because I believe most of those people were actually BG fans too, even if they wrote reviews without having played SOD. Right approach is understanding why they felt the need to even bother with doing that. Empathy is the key word here.
This is the main problem with SJW mentality. Based on what I have seen, most of them so fanatically believe they are right that whomever doesn't agree with them can be labeled a bigot, racist, sexist, etc., and become their enemy. Another perspective can't even be considered, it's absurd. They don't understand that this attitude has a lot of similarities with alt-right or far right, which they hate so much. The real enemy here is self-righteousness.
lol no I know you shat on both sides in your post, I just found it ridiculous that you believe we should try to empathize with the alt-right. I mean, if you in your heart believe these people have critical thinking skills, then go ahead and waste your time I suppose.
Edit: This is from whence the alt-right spawns (skip two 2:10);
And this is the most sane argument I have seen coming out of the alt-right:
Or, on a related note, use the terms that may unnecessarily trigger them - if the left may find "black monkey" racist and "trap" transphobic (regardless of whether it was the intent), then so may the right find "male aggression" misandrist. Consideration only means something when it goes both ways.
PS I also strongly suspect this war is a contributing factor why the social stuff is so often called shoehorned/hamfisted/quota-filled/etc. into the media. When you can tell the creator is making a political statement, even if they're not fully aware of it themselves - it's a subconscious defensive reaction. As opposed to it being something they genuinely liked and wanted to make for themselves, like all art should be.
If you look at e.g. Japanese media, you may find plenty of yuri, yaoi and other things, yet at no point does it feel the authors were political about what they create. In fact, I've often heard opinions by non-liberal sources that the Western left would win far more sympathy from them if it tried to mimic what Japanese do. I guess it's because the latter don't feel the need to be defensive about their values.
The only problem here is that both sides are equally responsible for continuation of this war that makes them so defensive it seeps into their subconscious, or at least not putting effort into stopping it.
1: You try to compare individuals' behavior with systemic behavior.
2: You immediately feel compelled to point your finger "But what about THOSE ppl who ALSO do wrong!!!11"
The first one is a classic mistake many ppl do who haven't really read up on facts and is used all too often as counter-arguments. I spoke of manhood, how men systematically are brought up to embody a set of ideals that are supposedly "Manly". This doesn't mean some men are very different from those ideals, it's the difference between a society structures and individuals. I won't bother linking you to facts about this though since you discarded my last link as pointless and didn't bother looking at it seems, but there are tons of academics who can witness to this. You know, ppl who have actually studied this for years and are promenent in their field of work and don't base their arguments on what they've read in forums or on emotions.
Secondly, I never said anything about women, my whole post was about men and social structures making men emotionally inadept to handle more complex feelings. So maybe ask yourself why you felt the need to jump up on your horse, pick up your lance and start attacking the windmills, ay?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemonic_masculinity#Toxic_masculinity
Personally, I think that we should be somewhat
tolerantYou combine this with the -- actively looking to be offended -- culture of the chans and you have gamergate.
The DEV who made those comments was a geek girl and a feminist and this offended them. (that crowd loves the gamer girls that embrace the masculine norms of the community but *hates* the geek girls who reject that culture)
Yes, the DEV made those innocuous comments but, like the trans NPC itself, they represent a few isolated comments in an ocean of words. She had much more to say about making bards a playable class and, while SoD isn't as good as the originals, SoD has the best bards . . .
A few things struck me about the youtube channels of the SoD 'controversy':
1) it was crystal clear that most of the commenters hadn't played the game
2) many of the recommended videos on the sidebar were to games that catered to a ginormous breast fetish
3) In the few reviews that weren't by beards or neckbeards the sidebar recommended that I watch: a) some evolutionary psychology rant, b) an all meat diet or c) a hunting video
It's a community that fears that feminism will destroy one of the last enclaves of traditional, 'natural' masculinity. This is why they are offended by trans people but okay with the bisexual half-orc, the half-orc confirms a culture of masculinity while a few words from a minor NPC threatens it.
TL;DR -- its about a community looking to be offended, not anything the DEV said.
And now someone replied that it apparently wasn't about historical accuracy after all - but a woman shouldn't play Annas because it's feminist propaganda, it's agenda pushing and so on.
Now I wouldn't have a problem discussing feminism, racism, social justice and all that with people who have different views than I. I do try to be understanding of other people's perspective. But when people are at the point where they think some amateur theater group from a small town in Sweden is involved in some feminist conspiracy to emasculate the western world? When they think a woman shouldn't be allowed to sing a song that is usually sung by a man because it's propaganda and pushing a hidden agenda? Where do I even begin to discuss anything at all with someone like that?
And since I'm a Swedish man myself, I'll often hear that I've just been brainwashed/emasculated by the horrors of Swedish feminism. Or that I don't actually have these opinions, but have some kind of ulterior motive. Hard to discuss with someone who immediately reduces you to "sheeple" or "you just want to get laid".
Cruel Christians Leave Waitress Biblical Tip: ‘Woman’s Place Is In the Home’
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2016/10/cruel-christians-leave-waitress-biblical-tip-womans-place-is-in-the-home/?fbclid=IwAR3gd5ge3w1Epv234B5cGa7kolrd6sQVc0bU20dx_nJi7dCnPWBO77lWwnkKudos for using a real name!
Having said that my internal skeptic is kicking in making me suspicious of the note.
Whoever wrote that note has the your / you're rule *exactly* wrong. They use 'your' when they should use 'you're' and vice versa. Given that rule is the one that really sets grammarian's teeth on edge, the note seems perfectly designed to upset people. Perhaps a bit too perfect?
Not saying I can divine anything but it just seems a bit too easy of a target . . .
Edit:
Incidentally, my sister is a full-time psyche-ward nurse and my mom was a teacher for 30 years (now retired).