I made an edit that you might have missed to clarify.
This is getting to be all over the place, and I really am not trying to derail. Stepping. Away.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Second annual "Let's discuss context-justified hetereonormative characters" thread
- Thread starter User 73706
- Start date
I made an edit that you might have missed to clarify.
This is getting to be all over the place, and I really am not trying to derail. Stepping. Away.
Doesn't really clarify- not sure what a French writer penning a story about Nemo hating the British has to do with 'Nemo being down to 'British showing some appreciation of the goods they got'. It's success doesn't have much to do with Imperial guilt rather than being a great adventure, guilt or 'how would you like it' is more War of the Worlds territory. But yes, goodnight, thanks for the chat all.
To try and get this topic back on track, and because no one responded to my latest point
, I present this asshole:
Cole Phelps! Given that L.A. Noire (from what I've played of it) actually tries to stay relatively accurate to the time and place of its setting (for instance, people are pretty suitably racist and sexist and horrible, for their time), I assume it's relatively justified for the police detective protagonist to be white.
I don't actually know that, though, even though I tried to research it. Anyone have any info on the demographics of police detectives in California (specifically Los Angeles) around the 40s?
Anyway, not really a good character, by any stretch, but the choice is probably justified given the story the game was trying to tell.
Cole Phelps! Given that L.A. Noire (from what I've played of it) actually tries to stay relatively accurate to the time and place of its setting (for instance, people are pretty suitably racist and sexist and horrible, for their time), I assume it's relatively justified for the police detective protagonist to be white.
I don't actually know that, though, even though I tried to research it. Anyone have any info on the demographics of police detectives in California (specifically Los Angeles) around the 40s?
Anyway, not really a good character, by any stretch, but the choice is probably justified given the story the game was trying to tell.
The British film industry adopting an Indian hero (builder) during the call to rebuild the country after a devastating war is still flying over peoples heads? One that hasn't been seen again until his comic book resurrection? ok.
No, your poorly explained initial point
did that, and your latest one does too.
The 1954 film (1955 in UK) was American.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/20,000_Leagues_Under_the_Sea_(1954_film))
The 1969 one was British.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Nemo_and_the_Underwater_City
A) 1969 is quite a while after the 'call to rebuild the country'.
B) it's also long after the end of the goods-grabbing Empire that you refer to (which was largely defunct by 1955 due to post-war concessions) making your point still wrong. I doubt the kids watching a mashup of underwater adventure in 1969 were filled with appreciation for the Empire's ill-gotten gains.
C) Captain Nemo's underwater cityscaping is pretty cool, but I don't think there's a post-blitz, urban regeneration message there in 1969.
D) Nemo isn't exactly an adopted 'hero' of the piece, despite being the titular character. The US ambassador is.
Mister Negative
Member
I kind of want to tap into the Django/RDR discussion here, because I find it interesting. If you were to do an American West game with a black main character, would you have to do it Django style, where he has a "white companion" justifying his presence?
But then that gets into the flipside of what this thread is about, which is black characters who aren't justified and who don't need to be. I'm kind of confusing myself here. I'm caught in this circle of "well it's bad that we almost HAVE to justify blackness, but it's good to have games celebrating 'black stories.'" Like, Django is great because it's a subversion of the racial power structure of the time, but at the same time he still has to be justified within the story by a white companion.
But then that gets into the flipside of what this thread is about, which is black characters who aren't justified and who don't need to be. I'm kind of confusing myself here. I'm caught in this circle of "well it's bad that we almost HAVE to justify blackness, but it's good to have games celebrating 'black stories.'" Like, Django is great because it's a subversion of the racial power structure of the time, but at the same time he still has to be justified within the story by a white companion.
hotnheavyload
Banned
To try and get this topic back on track, and because no one responded to my latest point, I present this asshole:
Cole Phelps! Given that L.A. Noire (from what I've played of it) actually tries to stay relatively accurate to the time and place of its setting (for instance, people are pretty suitably racist and sexist and horrible, for their time), I assume it's relatively justified for the police detective protagonist to be white.
I don't actually know that, though, even though I tried to research it. Anyone have any info on the demographics of police detectives in California (specifically Los Angeles) around the 40s?
Anyway, not really a good character, by any stretch, but the choice is probably justified given the story the game was trying to tell.
I've actually spoken to one of the art directors about this game, they did a metric shit ton of research for it, things you wouldn't even think of (i.e. how much exhaust was expelled from a car to photographing 50,000 props from the era; cans, laundry powder, etc).
I think it's safe to assume that the game is as historically sound as possible.
While we're on the subject of investigation, Heavy Rain would've been a good game to feature a minority protagonist.
Your links are broken. And your points of contention with my assessment still have nothing to do with my position. I also have the first hand account of my grandparents and parents, and our books for my understanding of the situation. One that Nationalists don't recognize.
What are we talking about here? Were Black people even around to be included in a fictional history?
Really appreciate this post. Too often people get hung up about the specific contexts in a specific situation in a specific piece of media. I personally like to view games in a larger bubble than just the individual contexts, but I try to keep it reasonably within the discussion.
Not that this is really the topic at hand, but.. I guess I'm not following or didn't consider Django the same way you did. In what way is Django's white partner justification for Django's presence as the protagonist?
Er, ok. I don't care about your position vs other posters elsewhere regarding history, that's not what I'm saying, I'm just pointing out that everything you've said to me regarding the reasons for Captain Nemo's popularity is wrong.
I've fixed the links but they are easy to find, check out the films on wiki if you don't believe me. You can't claim the popularity of a 1969 UK kids film is both down to the then-largely-dead British Empire appreciating it's gains and also the choice of antagonist encouraging rebuilding the nation 20 years earlier, would you agree on that?
If you didn't realise the 1954 Kirk Douglas flick was American, which largely sinks your posts to me, that's cool. Is that it?
Mister Negative
Member
Sorry, I just mean his "in-setting" justification. So maybe I was off the mark a little as far as the topic of the thread goes. Like, throughout the film, Django's literal presence in the story is justified to other characters as "oh he's just my assistant he's free though."
Like, Django's story is impossible without Dr. Schultz telling people "nah he's cool don't worry about it."
edit: so not his justification to the audience, but his justification to the other in universe characters.
Ohhhh, right. I forgot most of the plot to be honest, though I totally know what you're talking about now. That makes sense. Yeah, I think this thread is more about justification to the audience.
Though it is interesting to consider. If there was a Djangoesque video game maybe developers would feel the need to include a white partner for audience justification? Like, without such a partner it would just be this black guy massacring a bunch of (legitimately deserving) white people. So if they have a white dude there giving his stamp of approval, it makes it look not quite as bad to certain players.
Mister Negative
Member
And I think that's why it's interesting to discuss in this thread. We're talking about the Order, and the importance of historical context in a game about werewolf hunting. Take the discussion to Django. Despite it being a Tarantino-verse movie, it still required a little bit of justification for Django's story to be "believable" in the context of the American west.
But the Order is slightly different, because, yeah, werewolves. While it's impossible to tell if the white characters are entirely justified yet due to the game being unreleased, both sides of the argument have merit. I think you can still have a game that tries to be "grounded" in victorian england with werewolves, but you have to justify it being "actual victorian england with only white people" and not "fantasy steampunk england with some diverse representation"
Edit: so there are also some fun discussions to be had here about the differences between justifying a movie character and justifying a game character. I don't think Django needed to be justified to the audience, but he needed to obviously be justified "in-universe." A game seems different for the reasons you bring up. But why? Because of the audience? Or because of some aspects of the medium?
Prototype Viktor
Member
Say there are 20k of them of just one race out of all of England. You think most of them wouldn't be in the biggest cities and therefore pointless to percentage them against the entire country? Or at least correct it?
Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I do think that Christoph Waltz's character in Django Unchained is meant to (or does so, incidentally), at least partially, justify Django's actions to some subset of the audience, if only to make it seem like less of an 'us vs. them' kind of thing.
So the reason that I felt like that kind of justification might seem needed (by publishers, or whoever) for a similar video game is probably just due to the different demographics of the audiences in question, because I can't really think of an inherent difference in the mediums that would matter so much, in this case.
Mister Negative
Member
It's really, really hard to separate "justification to the audience" and "justification to the universe" though. Without justification to the universe, is a character justified to the audience, and thus, "believable"? You can have justification to the audience that explains a lack of justification to the universe, but I don't think you can have it the other way around.
Well, in the terms I was talking, I meant something more along the lines of being accepted by the audience, rather than being believable to the audience. I.. I think I was using the term justification a lot less rigorously than you were, and possibly got confused on what we both meant, hah.
In regards to the distinction between in-universe and audience justification, what you're saying sounds right. In-universe justification is pretty easy, depending on how meticulous you are about your universe, seeing as it's the author (or whoever) that crafts it and determines how and why things make sense. It's whether or not the audience buys the in-universe justification that determines whether or not the character is justified in the eyes of the audience.
Angelus Errare
Banned
Well people are making it pretty hard not to. When we have people arguing that werewolves being an actual thing and that they would have less ramification in 19th century Britain than racial equality, I can't help but laugh and question the sanity of someone who made such an argument. The medical and scientific ramifications alone would have completely changed the British Empire far more than racial equality ever could. Not to mention the restructuring of the poor and middle class, many will become food and many more will turn, and it's not like the comics and cartoons in which scientist find a 'cure'. We're talking generations of werewolves taking over the major cities. The night life of the British Empire would disappear almost entirely. Night shift jobs are no longer a thing, income dwindles, crime rate increases, fear and paranoia, mob mentality for those they perceive as a werewolf even if it isn't true.
Personally, I thought the diversity in DAI was refreshing. Instead of relying solely on the elves to portray issues of race/diversity, they crafted good human characters of different races. They also didn't harp on the races of some (Viv), she was just a POC in a position of power and no one (IIRC) thought it was strange or commented negatively about it, which was great. I hope more devs do the same.
And neither has RAD. 1886 sticks to established history about as much as Bloodborne as in it takes place in a fictional world that resembles Victorian era London, that's where it starts and ends, the world is fictional this is evident by the liberties they've taken. Once you start taking too many liberties you can no longer make the argument that they're sticking to "established history" because what they choose to keep or change is completely arbitrary.
Females were of low status in Victorian era unless they were of noble rank and if they were, they would have never been on the front line along side men. At best she would have been a glorified secretary and at no point would be handling weaponry fighting alongside men. You guys might want to read up on women in the Victorian era, they were barely a ring above servants. Hell getting married meant they no longer had control over their body and became their husband's property. If the family didn't have a servant (basically vast majority of people) then the women did the jobs that servants would do.
So unless this alternate timeline accuracy ignores the rampant sexism and struggles of women of that time period, then a new question arises, why is the rampant sexism ignored but the idea of racial diversity is breaking the 'grounded rules'.
Going by the many arguments being levied in here, there better be a damn good explanation as to why they've conscripted a female (when there were no notable female soldiers of high rank in the British Army at the time...which is the argument someone used in this thread against having a minority character). Then if there is an explanation given that completely goes against established history, then the same can be done for minority character and in fact having a minority character would make more sense at that point from a established history standpoint. Many military personnel of high rank had servants. It wouldn't be hard to imagine during war time against rebels and bloody werewolves that a servant went from serving to fighting alongside said soldiers, and would make much more sense from an 'established history' perspective than a woman fighting along side them.
No one questions a female character being part of the team, but the moment someone suggests a minority character people start doing mental gymnastics and crying 'established history' as some sort of counter argument. That same 'established history' that makes a female character questionable as hell.
*zzzzzzz*
And for the record, I'm completely fine with both a female character and/or a minority character because I realize that the world they created is fictional and a hilarious amount of liberties were taken with the setting.
Night Angel
Member
I am also fine with a female character in the game. I didn't come into this thread to cry about minority/female representation in games (I actually enjoy their inclusion); I came to this thread to discuss instances where devs could have heteronormative characters that were also completely justified by their context. The Order has such characters, and I am arguing that there are legitimate reasons for those characters to be who they are.
As for breaking from established history: you may set your limit for liberties taken at a certain point, but that by no means is a rule. Many works of fiction operate within the social and geopolitical norms of the era in which they take place. Magic/demons/werewolves/whatever existing does not mean the narrative has to completely break from the period/setting in which it takes place. It's very common for writers to set fiction in important eras of the past, and by having subtle accuracies buried in a fantastical tale an author can draw their audience deeper into their story than they might by fashioning their own world.
Either way, there's a reason I typically avoid these threads: to believe that a group of characters can be justifiably heteronormative is hand-waved away as "mental gymnastics", misogyny, or idiocy.
Sorry for another the Order post. :/
staticneuron
Member
To try and get this topic back on track, and because no one responded to my latest point, I present this asshole:
Cole Phelps! Given that L.A. Noire (from what I've played of it) actually tries to stay relatively accurate to the time and place of its setting (for instance, people are pretty suitably racist and sexist and horrible, for their time), I assume it's relatively justified for the police detective protagonist to be white.
I don't actually know that, though, even though I tried to research it. Anyone have any info on the demographics of police detectives in California (specifically Los Angeles) around the 40s?
Anyway, not really a good character, by any stretch, but the choice is probably justified given the story the game was trying to tell.
I think that game did a fantastic job on the characters for the time period. It wasn't the greatest game ever but it really did show the attention to detail they had there.
It's funny that you mention this, because GAF actually had a topic on it a couple of months ago. The Order's actually been criticized a fair bit on here for having an almost entirely white cast, in spite of there being so many other fantasy elements at play like half-breed mutant enemies, better technological advances including electrical weapons and thermal imaging, etc. I personally think that if a game like The Order goes out of its way to establish itself as having an alternative history like that, there's really nothing stopping them from including more diversity along the way somewhere in the game's backstory. It's just bizarre to me that people won't bat an eyelash seeing werewolves, tesla coil crossbows and neo-zeppelins, but will immediately question the inclusion of, say, a black Knight.
EDIT: Not to mention people of color did actually live in Victorian England.
While I agree with your point about fantasy please don't make stuff about history. There was little to none immigration from Africa at that time.
Well...if it makes you feel better, I don't believe that.
I think it's just an invisible comfort thing. Though, then again...I guess most forms of sexism and racism are caused from invisible forms of comfort. It's weird.
TheBlackMarvel
Member
I've been thinking about this and I think a lot of games could have benefited from going the Commander Shepard route. Very few characters would be affected by allowing the player to decide on their physical features. For example, Resident Evil wouldn't be affected at all if Leon had a player customisable appearance.
In fact, given how Ada went from Asian to Glen Close, this might be an improvement
User 73706
Banned
I think the line can usually be drawn pretty clearly. It's just like dramatic irony, where characters in the media don't know something the audience does. There's not any huge reasons for Clint Eastwood to justify the use of a black protagonist in a Western, but given the time period there definitely needs to be someone there for Django going "it's cool, he's with me" or whatever. If it were just a lone black guy going around trying to bring down racists, he'd probably be torn apart before he could even get started.
You know the entire point of this thread is to highlight examples that don't fall prey to that, right?
Thanks, bish.
orthodoxy1095
Banned
Patently false. We've questioned it in this thread based on Victorian culture not only being racist but also massively sexist and classist (something else that might be missing). Anyways, as bish has commanded, that's a discussion for another thread so we don't get sidetracked.
I love L.A. Noire. I think it really does a great job presenting the time period. I love the attention to detail.To try and get this topic back on track, and because no one responded to my latest point, I present this asshole:
Cole Phelps! Given that L.A. Noire (from what I've played of it) actually tries to stay relatively accurate to the time and place of its setting (for instance, people are pretty suitably racist and sexist and horrible, for their time), I assume it's relatively justified for the police detective protagonist to be white.
I don't actually know that, though, even though I tried to research it. Anyone have any info on the demographics of police detectives in California (specifically Los Angeles) around the 40s?
Anyway, not really a good character, by any stretch, but the choice is probably justified given the story the game was trying to tell.
...
Countries in Africa have been historically oppressed and exploited. It's just sensitive in general because there are still people alive in the modern world who view blacks as less than human.
It's sensitive in ways that I don't think people in Japan really understand, but I'm sure most others are more aware of. If our history wasn't so screwed up, then there would be no qualms. Zombie lore originated from Africa, so yes, it makes sense. But Zombies are, according to African/Voodoo lore, enslaved spirits doomed to a master after death. Unable to live or die; they are eternally slaves.
And then you have Wesker...controlling them. xD
Oh. Wesker. There you go, I guess Wesker had to be white given his philosophies...
Having John Marston in Red Dead Redemption as a white male was great because it became a springboard for other characters to regard him as "safe" to spout their biggoted and/or sexist ramblings/justifications for the player to observe. A subversive script is a beautiful thing, especially for a historical setting.
Well, there's a whole wealth of characters that are justified by virtue of the fact that they already exist, either fictionally or in reality. For instance, a Batman game is pretty justified in having Bruce Wayne be white (unless it's some TALES OF BATMAN alternate thing, but they probably with go with the regular Bats for a big game). Similarly if you made some Indiana Jones game or whatever. I assume those don't really count and aren't particularly valuable to discuss.
Here's an interesting question (I think): if a publisher or developer wants to make a sequel to an already existing game, with already existing characters (that are popular), should they be held to task for including the main character that already starred before (who was presumably a straight, white, male)? Or should we only criticize the people behind the original decisions from when the character first appeared? I mean, yes, a developer could just make a different game starring a different character, but if they wanted to make a successful sequel utilizing the former protagonist (which is almost always the case, regardless of that character's ethnicity or sex) then they would be stuck using the character from before (and it would be pretty controversial to just change an entrenched character's race, sex, or sexuality).
What about characters that don't meet all of the criteria, but still some of them? Like a straight woman whose heterosexuality is important. Or a gay dude whose whiteness is relevant to the game/plot? Can it only be someone who encompasses all of the generally considered 'generic' traits for protagonists? I had some ideas a few minutes ago for characters like this, but I kind of lost them, so I thought I'd ask if such examples would be relevant to the topic at hand or not before spending effort really trying to remember again.
Here's an interesting question (I think): if a publisher or developer wants to make a sequel to an already existing game, with already existing characters (that are popular), should they be held to task for including the main character that already starred before (who was presumably a straight, white, male)? Or should we only criticize the people behind the original decisions from when the character first appeared? I mean, yes, a developer could just make a different game starring a different character, but if they wanted to make a successful sequel utilizing the former protagonist (which is almost always the case, regardless of that character's ethnicity or sex) then they would be stuck using the character from before (and it would be pretty controversial to just change an entrenched character's race, sex, or sexuality).
What about characters that don't meet all of the criteria, but still some of them? Like a straight woman whose heterosexuality is important. Or a gay dude whose whiteness is relevant to the game/plot? Can it only be someone who encompasses all of the generally considered 'generic' traits for protagonists? I had some ideas a few minutes ago for characters like this, but I kind of lost them, so I thought I'd ask if such examples would be relevant to the topic at hand or not before spending effort really trying to remember again.
The topic is highlighting characters whose innate traits contribute substantially to their game or story context. Specifically characters who aren't interchangeable with an alternative.
I guess I don't understand how your response addresses my curiosity. The bolded specifically seems to suggest that those kinds of characters would be fair game (when I suspect that otherwise is the case). In a Batman game, Batman isn't interchangeable with an alternative. He's justified by virtue of the game they want to make. It's different if we're talking about something like, I don't know, GTA6, where they could introduce any new characters they wanted and the only thing stopping them is their own design choices.
Furthermore, I think my second paragraph was the point of most interest. Is it fair to criticize a developer or publisher for making a sequel starring a character who fit these criteria (straight white male)? They may not even be the ones who made the original decision for the character to be this way. Take 343 Industries and Halo, for instance. They never designed the original Master Chief, but they're essentially stuck with their character being a (relatively) white male because of the nature of the game they're trying to make. They can't just change the character's race or sex due to the controversy that would ensue.
If this thread is supposed to be a kind of 'answer' to the annoyance of people demanding justification for various minorities in video games (which is bullshit, admittedly), then I don't see how the above isn't relevant. Let's take Mirror's Edge, for instance. In the original game Faith's ethnicity isn't really 'justified' in any way (not that it needs to be), that's just who she is. But Faith being her particular race & ethnicity in a Mirror's Edge 2 would be justified by that being her established character. If people suggested her race wasn't justified in the sequel you would have dudes (rightfully) shitting on those people because obviously her race has already been established.
Syph Medwes
Member
This is a very interesting thread. I must have missed the first iteration.
Anyway, can someone, perhaps the topic creator, please explain the above, specifically in regards to Marcus Fenix? I'm confused.
You're confusing discussion with criticism or a call for censure, and you're supplanting the actual conversation with a one you want to have. Also, brevity would be a good friend to make (but yes, I'm reading your full posts).
Edit: For further clarity, the thread isn't a celebration of arbitrary "re-skins" of characters to minority groups. Quite the opposite, actually.
Unfortunately your brevity here isn't helpful in my understanding of what you're trying to say. What exactly do you suspect I'm confusing?
Also, I really am not trying to change the course of conversation. Honestly, it seemed relevant to the topic at hand, and I had a few ideas for characters that might fit the criteria (but I wasn't sure of the exact boundaries). The topic's been moving very slowly ever since The Order conversation ceased, so it seemed fine to try and get clarification on a few things so that I could try and contribute to the thread's actual purpose (as far as I understood it).
EDIT: In reading this line from the OP I think I have a better understanding of the kinds of things the topic is meant for:
So now I'm still wondering whether or not a character has to be a strictly straight white male to qualify, or if it can be a white woman whose whiteness is justified plot-wise somehow, or other things of that nature. I'd give an example of one, since I had two in mind earlier, but I frustratingly can't recall them still.
Saying the context is its own context (similar to how you said Batman is contextually justified as a white because Batman is white) is recursive, and not in line with what I understand the topic to mean.
I agree with you that it's not in line with what the topic is meant for now that I've re-read the OP a bit, but I would disagree that it's recursive. It's only recursive if the origin of your justification comes from the exact same product/story/game/bit-of-media/whatever you're creating. In the case of Batman, Indiana Jones, Nathan Drake, or whoever, as long as the character is pre-established I'd still still argue that the character's race (whether it's Drake from Uncharted 4 or Jones from Fate of Atlantis) is justified in that it's a direct line from an existing 'person'. There's a discussion to be had as to whether or not that character ever being that race is a 'valuable' thing, and it probably isn't valuable, or relevant at all, but I would say it's obviously justified for direct sequels with established characters to continue that character's continuity.
Regardless, like I said in my earlier edit, I think I have a better grasp on the topic at hand and am now considering whether characters that just have justification for some of their generic traits (i.e. a white woman having some plot-relevant justification for being white) are open game, or if the topic is meant strictly for straight, white, men.
Remember when I said it seemed like you were trying to have a different conversation?
Yup. I'm not. I'm obviously going to respond to you since I disagree with your point, and we were having that discussion. Other than that, I was just wondering whether certain things are open to discuss (since the OP was heavy with straight, white male talk). I don't see what is so disruptive about that? I had two examples in mind that I'm trying to remember, and am wondering if the topic is specifically about THE generic straight white male (which is obviously prevalent) or if it's kosher to discuss slightly less 'default' characters that may have justifications for their more 'generic' traits, like their whiteness, straightness, etc.
Please, please don't assume that I'm trying to do some under-handed derail of the thread, because I am seriously, honestly, not. The thread is barely even going anywhere. I was trying to keep the conversation going by getting a clarification on the boundaries of the topic so as to know whether the stuff I was thinking of was relevant.
If you don't know whether or not the kinds of things I'm asking about are welcome or not, then that's cool, and let's stop this conversation so that you can stop accusing me of something I'm not doing, because it's really very frustrating and it seems there's nothing I can do to convince you otherwise.
EDIT: I see your RDR post above, now. I'd say that Cole Phelps served a similar role in L.A. Noire, especially being in the police dept. You got a great sense of the shitty and prevalent racism, sexism, everything at the time, since you were basically part of the white boys club, as well as being in a place of authority. I can't remember his name, but the Vice Dept. partner that you have was a gigantic asshole in this regard, and so casual about it too.
It wouldn't be unusual for the RDR time period at all. Around a quarter of cowboys were black.
Though RDR isn't particularly historically accurate anyway, since much of its inspiration comes from spaghetti westerns that weren't even filmed in the United States.
The title of the thread answers your question, by the way.
The topic title says to discuss context-justified heteronormative characters. I understand heteronormative to only have relevance to sexuality. Or, at least, that's my understanding of it. So that seems to leave open women along with men, but also people of all sorts of races as well.
Inside the topic, the OP says:
And all of his examples are straight, white men. So, from my understanding at least, the topic title is at odds with some of the content of the OP. That's partially why I was hoping for some clarification. It would be nice if you could be open to the possibility that I'm not trying to be some asshole here and dismantle the thread, but actually wanted to maybe discuss some other things that I wasn't sure were relevant. That is really all there was to it. My God.
boiled goose
good with gravy
Was there any racial tension in re5? In the actual game not the media.
Potential minor spoilers for Ace Attorney Trials & Tribulations below?
I would argue that Phoenix's heterosexuality is relevant to the plot in a way that would be difficult to alter for the first case (and final case, perhaps?) of Trials & Tribulations. All of the issues that stem from this case deal with a young Phoenix:
being infatuated with this manipulative girl:
Pretty much every reason that Phoenix does anything that gets him in trouble in this case is due to being head-over-heels in love with her. Furthermore, it doesn't seem easily alterable to just have Phoenix be head-over-heels for some dude instead, because a big part of Dahlia's character is that all of the men she interacts with (the judge is certainly no exception) fall similarly head-over-heels for her. This is the main way she's able to turn things to her favor, especially in the court proceedings.
This would be pretty difficult to pull off with any believability if she was replaced with a homosexual or bisexual man, instead. I mean, they could do it, obviously, but they'd have to imply that everyone in court was either gay or had some gay leanings. Dahlia fits a trope, and not really a great trope, but because of that, I think Phoenix's heterosexuality is at least somewhat justified when you consider the plot-relevant implications it has.
I would argue that Phoenix's heterosexuality is relevant to the plot in a way that would be difficult to alter for the first case (and final case, perhaps?) of Trials & Tribulations. All of the issues that stem from this case deal with a young Phoenix:
being infatuated with this manipulative girl:
Pretty much every reason that Phoenix does anything that gets him in trouble in this case is due to being head-over-heels in love with her. Furthermore, it doesn't seem easily alterable to just have Phoenix be head-over-heels for some dude instead, because a big part of Dahlia's character is that all of the men she interacts with (the judge is certainly no exception) fall similarly head-over-heels for her. This is the main way she's able to turn things to her favor, especially in the court proceedings.
This would be pretty difficult to pull off with any believability if she was replaced with a homosexual or bisexual man, instead. I mean, they could do it, obviously, but they'd have to imply that everyone in court was either gay or had some gay leanings. Dahlia fits a trope, and not really a great trope, but because of that, I think Phoenix's heterosexuality is at least somewhat justified when you consider the plot-relevant implications it has.
Sheva Alomar's motivations referenced the long-standing influence of colonialism, which was a nice touch. Otherwise, I don't recall it being used heavily. Josh Stone felt underutilized, in this regard, except showing him as having a personal investment in the results of the regional BSAA operations. Thematically, you can make ties (specifically with how the bio-weapon firms treat NIMBY populations), but it's kept mostly below the surface. The idea of this form of the bio-weapon "reverting" the population to an earlier state, and using nose-boned, spear-chucking imagery to represent that is a loaded element. To my taste, Sheva was a good character as a cultural envoy for at least mentioning long-standing cultural concerns about ethnic mistreatment.
User 73706
Banned
To Giever: couple things.
For the sake of this particular discussion, I'm sticking to caucasian, hetereosexual males being used as examples. While "hetereonormative" only refers to sexuality and gender roles in its most literal sense, it's seen use in social studies as a more broad nomination for "the norm," that is hetereosexual, white, predominantly male, otherwise focusing on the cultural majority, etc.
Two things I want to strain with you:
- If you want to get as literal as you're being with the topic at hand, keep in mind the thread also emphasizes contextual justification. It's a lot more about circumstances enabling circumstances, and resorting to definitions in their most literal format is never a great way to go about these types of discussions. Unless I missed something, I haven't seen anyone else run into any problems attempting to purely use "hetereonormative" as a quantifier. The OP clearly establishes guidelines for the topic at hand. Even though there are some fictitious spins on the requirements, for example Link being used as "white," nobody else has attempted to bring in anyone outside of the straight white male descriptor. It's really not that hard to figure out.
- There is a clear divide here in that, being a discussion on gaming, it's going to primarily revolve around characters that originated in a gaming environment. No, a Batman or Indiana Jones game probably won't feature a black Bruce Wayne or eponymous any time soon. But that's not what this discussion is about. Again, we're here to discuss characters that were created within the developmental confines of video gaming. This is not the thread to discuss the ramifications of franchises originating outside of a gaming environment having to become more diverse or inclusive. It would be great if they were, but, again - this thread is purely to discuss gaming-related spectra. You're more than welcome to delve further into the subject of new developers or sequels being able to "justify" their characters, but bringing in media outside of the video games themselves is not a part of this discussion. And, speaking of clear divides, obviously video games aren't completely self-contained in their origins - God knows how many Eastern titles have been inspired by Journey to the West - but there's a definitive difference between a character like Link being inspired by Peter Pan, and a Peter Pan video game outright.
As far as your sequel / new developer question: I definitely think that's worth discussing. I think it's entirely possible to improve diversity in sequels / with new developers, and if you put enough love into the idea, there's definitely things that could be done with existing characters to make them more diverse without changing who they are. Keep in mind this thread is about gaming characters in general, not just protagonists. For example, a guy like Delsin from Infamous: Second Son could have a sequel where it's offhandedly mentioned he's mixed, or there's a scene where he's with his boyfriend, etc.
For the sake of this particular discussion, I'm sticking to caucasian, hetereosexual males being used as examples. While "hetereonormative" only refers to sexuality and gender roles in its most literal sense, it's seen use in social studies as a more broad nomination for "the norm," that is hetereosexual, white, predominantly male, otherwise focusing on the cultural majority, etc.
Two things I want to strain with you:
- If you want to get as literal as you're being with the topic at hand, keep in mind the thread also emphasizes contextual justification. It's a lot more about circumstances enabling circumstances, and resorting to definitions in their most literal format is never a great way to go about these types of discussions. Unless I missed something, I haven't seen anyone else run into any problems attempting to purely use "hetereonormative" as a quantifier. The OP clearly establishes guidelines for the topic at hand. Even though there are some fictitious spins on the requirements, for example Link being used as "white," nobody else has attempted to bring in anyone outside of the straight white male descriptor. It's really not that hard to figure out.
- There is a clear divide here in that, being a discussion on gaming, it's going to primarily revolve around characters that originated in a gaming environment. No, a Batman or Indiana Jones game probably won't feature a black Bruce Wayne or eponymous any time soon. But that's not what this discussion is about. Again, we're here to discuss characters that were created within the developmental confines of video gaming. This is not the thread to discuss the ramifications of franchises originating outside of a gaming environment having to become more diverse or inclusive. It would be great if they were, but, again - this thread is purely to discuss gaming-related spectra. You're more than welcome to delve further into the subject of new developers or sequels being able to "justify" their characters, but bringing in media outside of the video games themselves is not a part of this discussion. And, speaking of clear divides, obviously video games aren't completely self-contained in their origins - God knows how many Eastern titles have been inspired by Journey to the West - but there's a definitive difference between a character like Link being inspired by Peter Pan, and a Peter Pan video game outright.
As far as your sequel / new developer question: I definitely think that's worth discussing. I think it's entirely possible to improve diversity in sequels / with new developers, and if you put enough love into the idea, there's definitely things that could be done with existing characters to make them more diverse without changing who they are. Keep in mind this thread is about gaming characters in general, not just protagonists. For example, a guy like Delsin from Infamous: Second Son could have a sequel where it's offhandedly mentioned he's mixed, or there's a scene where he's with his boyfriend, etc.
That's totally understandable! Thanks for the explanation.
I honestly never heard heteronormative being used that way. To be sure of it's definition I tried looking it up on Wikipedia, and what I said was essentially what I found there, so that's what I went with. In regards to characters having to specifically be straight what males, I saw that was all that you used, but I just wasn't sure whether or not the topic really had to be so strictly defined, when there may exist other characters out there that 'justify' their generic traits even if not meeting all of the ones listed.
That's totally cool if that's all you meant, but I also don't think it's particularly fair to paint me as someone that was being deliberately subversive of your intent (not that that's what you're suggesting, but I felt that vibe earlier). Because honestly all I wanted to do was see if the discussion was open to being widened slightly to include things like that. Mainly because stuff sort of stagnated after bish (thankfully) halted all of the The Order talk.
To be fair, if you reread my point earlier where I brought up characters being brought in from other mediums (Batman, Indiana, etc.), I did dismiss it as likely being irrelevant to the topic at hand right at the end of the very same paragraph. It was mainly a way to segue into my thoughts about characters potentially being justified through continuity of sequels (which I later noticed didn't quite meet what you were trying to do, but it was still interesting to me in terms of whether or not examples of that deserve as much criticism as totally new IPs which continue to use straight, white, male characters).
I totally agree! It would be great if some developer had the balls to do something like that despite the risk of alienating some of their audience. In fact, doing something like that with an already established character (one that has left a window of possibility to do such a thing with, anyway) could be a great way of shaking some peoples' views and making them think about how little a person's sexuality, race, etc., really matters and remind them that they're also just another human being.
Also it's true that I kind of forgot that this thread wasn't solely focused on main protagonists, but is open to all potentially-justifiable side characters or whoever. Whoops!
EDIT: Also, I apologize if you feel like I've been stuffing up the thread. I really only wanted to make that one post that I thought was relevant, but then I felt like I had to keep defending myself because it was being implied (or rather, stated outright) that I was trying to do something I really feel like I wasn't. I probably should've tried to take that discussion to PMs, so, my bad!
You had a white dude going to an African country shooting spear-chucking locals wearing skirts and masks. And a bunch of Black men assaulting a white woman. I'd call that racial tension, although the game doesn't explicitly address its racial undercurrents.