Far Cry 3's Citra Is Straight From the Freakshow

[SiskoBlue]

Good article. I felt they missed a massive oppurtunity in Far Cry 3. The cultural hodge podge they use is laughable. I know its satire but their are elements of Balinese architecture, and Malay patterns from the most western fringes of the Pacific, all the way to Easter Island type head statues. This would be like showing a Samoan a game where you have Stonehenge, next to St Petersburg Palace, and Bhagdad, and saying "That's 'Europe'".

This would be fine if there was a wider knowledge of pacific islander cultures but there isn't. So as you say, this may be the ONLY view many western gamers get.

Frankly, I found the whole Citra/tatau/warrior plot completely laughable. It's a massive gripe I have with many games that players a) are suddenly the chosen one, and b) basically a slave to whatever NPCs ask you to do with little or no point, or motivation that makes sense. The Hero's Journey is so well worn it amazes me when they stupidly cut out intergral parts, like "rejecting the call" and also not giving a solid reason to go forward (particularly after you've saved everyone in Far Cry 3, being Citra's ***** was not my idea of becoming the ultimate warrior).

The moment did have an effect on me though. I immediately thought "Nope! I'm getting my friends and getting as far away from this nutjob as possible". If Citra is supposed to be some male fantasy, it's not one I've had.

 

[Callate]

I'm really late to the party. I only just finished Far Cry 3, and didn't want to be the unwitting audience for spoilers, so I apologize. (And I picked the "save your friends" ending, because I can spot a "bad end" coming a mile away, so I had to see the "Join Citra" ending on Youtube. But I digress.)

The background is interesting reading, and I agree that the narrative of Far Cry clearly echoes it. But there is something that troubles me about the perception of that narrative, as presented, as racist.

The old "Tattooed Man" stories gave the audiences a thrill and entertained them because they gave them a look at a people (however fictionalized) who were different while re-enforcing the audience's belief in their cultural and racial superiority. The "savages" were dark skinned and ugly, they worshipped "false gods", they lived in squalor and their beliefs and actions caused lives that were nasty, brutish and short to be even more so.

The Rakyat, by comparison- well, they're not ugly. In the case of Citra, one could argue they're beautiful. They all appear to have mastered at least two languages. The towns that you visit have electric power, gas stations, and quite modern-looking (if limited by nature of their isolation) general stores. They have modern weapons and use them competently and fearlessly.

And their beliefs...? Everything that the player sees in the game strongly suggests that rather than pursuing savagery out of ignorance and superstition, the Rakyat are actually tapped into something so powerful that the real wonder is why the slavers don't flee the island in terror.

In all seriousness, I kept waiting for the "other shoe to drop"- to discover that the protagonist was actually hallucinating everything while lying in a stupor with a bullet lodged in a vital organ or the last several hours had been a side-effect of one of the multiple concussions and doses of hallucinogens the character withstands through the course of play.

The growing tattoo and the "syringes" created from local plants are on one hand just interesting ways of interpreting old video game tropes of healing and skill progression. But on the other, the Rakyat have discovered herbal medicines that turn multiple gunshot wounds into trivialities, allow people to "see" enemies half a kilometer away through solid walls, and render the users all but impervious to fire. Likewise, the tattoo isn't just some tribal marking or even a kind of legend recounting a warrior's great deeds- its presence allows the bearer to do great things, turns a cringing tourist into a man who kills a roomful of heavily armed mercenaries who have the drop on him without apparently even being aware he's doing it.

So if, at the end, your fool self chooses to join Citra and she kills you with the idea that the ritual will bring a powerful child into the world-- Um, who's to say within the context of Far Cry 3's world that she isn't entirely correct in her understanding? And that, however violent and terrifying they might ultimately prove to be, the Rakyat aren't in some sense superior to the invaders and tourists who behold them?

Honestly, I have a far bigger problem with the fact that Citra is so under-developed that you barely see the machinations the writer apparently envisioned, and the change-over from the Rakyat being oppressed bearers of powerful traditions to violence-hungry brutes who are jealous of the notion you might reject their ways seems sudden and gratuitous. It doesn't feel like the ending arose out of what came before it; it feels like the ending came out of a desire to work one more twist into the mix. There was an opportunity to more fully flesh out the relationship between Citra and Vaas that could have better highlighted the two as opposite sides of the same dangerous coin, and it wasn't really fully capitalized upon (that Vaas/Citra hallucination on the stripper pole noted, but found rather minor and missable.)

 

[Dixie Whiskey Priest]

well i'm just gonna say that i read most of these comments and 8/10 of y'all come across just as much humorless PC liberal nutcases as y'are, no.... you dont have the white man's burden
you got the white man's guilt
its a game okay? it aint real, if every character was some intellectual liberal without any color or character to him then the game really wouldnt be worth much, i liked the citra character, spiced up the game, hell i liked the whole campaign, characters and ideas, if you got a problem with playin as a white man killin black/"brown" thugs then you got a problem with reality
Just let go... forget the politically correct nonsense you been brought up on for a change, you claim to be "open minded"? well maybe practice what ya preach,
Jesus man... sports, games, we play these to get away from your overpoliticizin of everything and everyone, now you gonna politicize these too?
just take the whole thing with a good humor and a grain of salt
my only problems were all the damned bugs and that uplay s**t makin me unable to use the nonfunctioning damned multiplayer