Feminist Frequency Removes Fan Art From Tropes Vs. Women Banner
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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So you're denying that the overwhelming majority of rape victims and spousal abuse are female, with male victims in the minority? You deny that women are still, on average, paid a lower wage than men in the same roles? Feminism continues to be relevent because inequality still occurs.UncleThursday said:
No, it doesn't matter, men are still committing rape, so yes, we ahve to teach men to not rape. Can you propose a different solution? How would you take care of this problem?UncleThursday said:
Wait, are you seriously suggesting that domestic violence doesn't matter if it's "only" perpetrated by the poor? Are you seriously saying that doemstic violence doesn't affect non-poor people and so should be ignored? So, for you, if a crime is commited against someone that you see as a minority group, it's not a crime?UncleThursday said:
That's just bullshit through and through. Crime and justice in the UK are based on intent, effect and outcome. A slagging match might result in police intervention, if it's a breach of the peace, but would not be considered male on female abuse by default. If the slagging was sominated by one party, if it is a continuous, repeated occurrance in which one party is being controlled and demeaned, then it becomes abuse.UncleThursday said:
I don't know which is worse, that you're ignorant of how the law functions but spread misinformation anyway or the fact that, by insinuation, you seem to think that controlling a person through abusive language and initimidation is ok?
So you think that racism doesn't exist for the groups that traditionally perpetrated it only continues because victims of that racism continue to talk about? Do you really believe that?UncleThursday said:
Have you ever heard the phrase "blaming the victim"? I suggest you look it up along with a list of the other logical fallacies.
Thanks to the transcript, we can do all of this without me having to watch the video again...JimB said:
The actual story and characters of Dinosaur Planet revolved around Sabre and his adopted sister, Krystal. The initial outset of the story had them looking for Sabre's father, Random, who had adopted Krystal (more like just took her in when she was an abandoned baby). Sabre's older brother had been killed, before the game, and Random was a wizard. Players would be allowed to switch between either character when in the open world, and only be required to use one or the other in specific story sequences that dealt only with that specific character. As the story progressed, it did become more than about saving just Random, whom the carnivorous dinosaur-like army wanted under their power on their own quest to rule the planet, and thus saving all the peaceful inhabitants of the planet. It, however, was not just Krystal's task and some other character not even worthy of being mentioned by name, as Anita states.
She has this trailer continue playing while she speaks the next part. However, any and all shots and audio of Sabre in the trailer are edited out. While it technically is the Dinosaur Planet trailer, by removing all of Sabre's parts and making it appear that the game revolved around Krystal, she is lying by omission. By showing Sabre and his own role in the game, she would not be supporting her previous statement that the game revolved around Krystal and her quest to save the world. To her target audience, which is not gamers, this is how the game is presented and what they will believe is true.
This is her own opinion being presented as a fact. While Nintendo and Miyamoto had commented that Sabre did resemble Fox McCloud (he did); it is completely asinine to assume that just because Miyamoto said that Sabre kind of looked like Fox, that the game was changed. From a business standpoint, launching Dinosaur Planet on the Gamecube would not have been the best move for Nintendo; especially because Rare had recently been partially purchased by Microsoft (and by the game's release fully purchased) but were contractually obligated to finish Dinosaur Planet/StarFox Adventures. When it was decided it would move to the new hardware, there were obviously other considerations that were taken into effect. It had no franchise characters within it. The Gamecube was already not launching with a franchise character game... the closest to it was Luigi's Mansion; but Luigi is not a franchise character on his own, as he is part of the Mario franchise. There was Pikmin, which was only really made a launch title because Miyamoto was developing it, and people knew Miyamoto, so Nintendo assumed it would at least do decent. There was the WaveRace sequel. And, that's about it for first party games. But, there was no true franchise game launching with the GC.
A more logical assumption is that because Sabre already resembled Fox McCloud and that the StarFox games on the SNES and N64 had done fairly well, is that Nintendo decided that Dinosaur Planet would potentially do better with an established franchise character at the lead, IE Fox McCloud. This obviously meant story changes, especially since Fox is not related to Krystal (who also changed from a feline species in Dinosaur Planet to a canine species in the final game). Sabre was completely removed, as was his father, Random. Krystal's role was also drastically reduced and she was made a DiD for a good chunk of the game, though that seems like something that didn't need to happen.
The only ones who truly know why Dinosaur Planet was changed to StarFox Adventures are the people who worked on it at Nintendo and Rare. But to assume that Miyamoto, alone, changed the entire thing based on the character looking like an established character is beyond specious. It's downright ludicrous. That's the sort of decisions high up executives are involved in; and they're looking at the potential sales... not 'woah, dude! He kinda looks like Fox, bro! Change it to a StarFox game!'
This scene is also edited down to remove any part where Fox isn't oogling at Krystal.
Another lie by omission, as all the game sequences built for Sabre were also changed to fit Fox into them. The entirety of the game was changed to fit it in the StarFox Universe, not just Krystal's parts; StarFox Universe characters were added and entire characters and storylines/story sequences already shown at preview events for Dinosaur Planet were removed.
Word for goddamn word from the Wikipedia page at the time (I don't know if it has been changed). There is a video on YT where the Wikipedia page words highlight as she says them.
Also known as the Monomyth. I should also point out that Andromeda was being sacrificed by her own family because of Andromeda's mother's hubris in proclaiming that Andromeda's beauty surpassed that of Hera, wife of Zeus. Certain versions of the Monomyth also have the DiD actually be going through her own trials and tribulations before becoming a hero in their own right (ruler, etc.).
JimB said:
So, being the quintessential DiD means she's is almost always a DiD; right?
JimB said:
So, because they're not part of the 'core Mario games' they don't count. Because they don't support her argument that Peach/Toadstool is the quintessential DiD. Remember, again, that the majority of her appearances (over half) she is playable, and in a bunch of others that she appears in, she is not a DiD character. So, with her appearing in 83 games (I can't remember if it is a total of 83 or 84 with SSB DS and Wii U, so I'll go with the smaller number), she is a DiD in 15.66% of her total appearances. And that makes her the quintessential DiD?
This is confirmation bias, plain and simple. Anything that doesn't support her predetermined argument that Peach/Toadstool is nearly always a DiD is simply ignored. Especially when such evidence shows that she is a DiD in the minority of games she is in.
Getting back to some other statements...
So, she's 'accidentally playable' in SMB2 (US)? This is another opinion being stated as fact. Had Nintendo of America not wanted her in the game, they could have easily just removed the character she replaced; or gone a step further and removed the character Toad replaced, as well and just had Mario and Luigi as the two characters that players played as. Also note that if they had removed her from SMB2, then one of her biggest signature abilities-- the ability to float for short distances-- would also be gone from her subsequent game appearances. Nintendo of America decided to keep all 4 characters and decided Peach/Toadstool should be one of them (probably because from the original SMB, there were only 4 'good' character models; Mario, Luigi, Toad and the Princess).
Another opinion being stated as fact. Nintendo's own reasoning behind not having her playable in NSMB WII and Wii U was that they didn't want to take the time to give her her own moves or work on her dress physics. That's lazy game design; not sexism.
And, that's just from part of the first video. However, I must get ready for work.
here's the thing, i, in large parts, agree with some of the things she's saying. you misunderstand.wolfyrik said:
i want bad things to happen to her (particularly being sued in this case might have been a disciplinary experience for her) because she is a hack, a hypocrite, and very likely a fraud. she has done incredible harm both to a hobby i'm very invested in and to gender equality.
Uhura said:
Actually, the drunk driving comparison is perfect. Relatively recently the UK introduced an anti drunk-driving campaign and the incidents of drunk-driving related deaths are now, thirty years on, a quarter of what they used to be. Here is a link: http://www.theguardian.com/responsibledrinking/road.safetyultreos2 said:
Not to mention that the 'Don't Be That Guy' anti-rape campaign has seen a reduction in rape cases only a short while after its implementation.
Or that murder and theft crime have been on a steady decrease for the last thirty years.
Yes, teaching men not to rape is working. What we need is more wide-spread implementation, and a certain level of focus outside the main straight male target demographic.
In the US, domestic violence is split 60/40 per DoJ statistics. 60% of the cases are against women, 40% against males. http://www.americanbar.org/groups/domestic_violence/resources/statistics.html However, the statistics do not break down things like same sex couples (male on male and female on female violence), nor does it distinguish between different sex couples where the violence is done by both parties. A 60/40 split is hardly an overwhelming majority.wolfyrik said:
As for rape, that can depend. Child sexual abuse can happen to either boys or girls of any young age. Perpetrators of child sexual abuse have been found to be both male and female. When it comes to rape of adults, more women report than men. Less than 1 in 10 male on male rape victims have ever come forward, and most of those were in prison. But, there is a stigma in society that simply prevents male rape victims from ever coming forward, and that is appearing weak. Imagine the looks, snickers and such from those in a police station if a man were to claim rape by a woman. I'm sure most people would be saying 'you got laid, dude, feel good about it'. Now imagine the even bigger laughter that would occur if it was a male on male rape being reported. 'Took it up the butt, eh dude!'
Then, of course, there is the whole 'women simply can't rape men' aspect that gender feminism has been ramming down people's throats for decades. Again, look at the double standards out there. If a woman is drunk, she can't consent... if a man is drunk, well he's just a giant erect penis wanting it anyway. Etc. Ideas that we're told make it rape of a woman, if a man is in the same position, simply don't have the same effect.
Rape against men is seen as humorous. Rape against women is seen as horrible. As an example, smething a women I know wrote on the subject about the movie The Wedding Crashers:
Rape against men and women should be seen as the horrible thing it is. But, we're continually shown that rape against men is simply a joke to be laughed at.
Women commit rape too, both on other females and on males. Should we teach them not to rape, as well? Should I start bringing up the cases of older women taking advantage of young boys, and in at least one case getting pregnant from those acts and then the court deciding the kid needed to pay child support to his rapist? Here, read it yourself before you go claiming that never happened: http://law.justia.com/cases/california/caapp4th/50/842.htmlwolfyrik said:
Rape is not the one way street that gender feminists would like everyone to believe, the same with domestic violence.
You like putting words into people's mouths, I see. I said statistically, domestic violence is not the epidemic, especially in middle or upper class people, that gender feminists would like everyone to believe. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but the odds are far less when moving just to the middle class over much poorer areas.wolfyrik said:
Perhaps then, Baroness Hale of Richmond, a UK Supreme Court judge, should also be taught the law, then, along with the 4 other judges that agreed with her ruling that shouting is domestic violence?wolfyrik said:
Maybe this UK solicitor's website http://www.venters.co.uk/DomesticViolence.ink should remove the part that says:
I also love that committing suicide is domestic violence against a woman on that site. And these are UK 'domestic violence specialists'? I mean, yeah... "if I off myself, that'll show my wife just how much abuse I can throw a her!" Jesus fuck. They also list putting you down in front of others or not responding when talked to... have they ever seen how lots of women act in relationships? Getting put down by a wife or girlfriend is practically expected, the same with them not responding when they're pissed.
You're putting words in my mouth again. Look up that phrase, then re-read what I wrote with at least a first grader's reading comprehension ability. I said those who have made careers out of continually polarizing race relations, while claiming to want to end racism, do NOT want racism to end, or they lose all their ability to make money, get on the media, etc. That you have problems understanding what that means speaks wonders for your overall world view and ability to comprehend simple things.wolfyrik said:
1. What are you talking about? Rape is treated no different than any of these crimes in terms of education. You're living in a paranoid fantasy world. People who are caught speeding or drink/driving have to attend courses. Even before driving people are taught hot drive safely, not to speed, not to drink drive. There have been government announcements and campains on these very issues!ultreos2 said:
2. Female superiority?! Are you stoned? When have I claimed such a thing? You're just creating straw-man arguments now, because your positions is so weak. You're having to event things to complain about and turn that into a further fallacy of ad-hominem. Either you're deliberately being deceitful or you're actually paranoid-delusional, I'm not sure which. Oh and I've never claimed that abuse or vilence are one sided, you've added that idea in yourself, part of your tin-foil-hattery, nothing more.
As for your shouting match, it's all about intent, as I said, good of you to gloss over that, lets just add it to the fast-growing list of dishonest claims you make, eh? As for false arrests over such situations, as I think you're implying, I'm sure that they may occur that doesn't mean that police should stop intervening and let abusive partners abuse, just in case they get it wrong once or twice. That's what the courts are for, so the truth can be established and the innocent released. Of course, don't let logic get in the way of rabid-foam-mouthed ranting.
3 "you are all potential little rapists and I am going to teach you how evil you already are, when you end all drunk driving. "
Yeah, now you've really lost the plot. Teaching people that sexual assault is a crime and is immoral, is in no way calling all men "rapists" or "evil". You seem to think that education is an accusation, which is baffling and ludicrous. If rape wasn't occurring, there'd be no reason to discuss it or teach that it's harmful and wrong. It is occurring and you're blaming the victims for the response. That's pretty disgusting.
You missed the point entirely, re-read the post I was responding to and the rest of my post. However you look at it, the other post was bitching about femenists who are STILL responding to inequality. However you look at it, most abuse occurs by men against women. By your own figures that' a fact. Sure it goes both way, but we're talkingabout the relevence of femenism. Or are you claiming that 60/40 is fair, reduces wages are fair, that women in the military should accept that rape occurs and let themselves be raped, these are all relevent. The other poster was blaming the victims for standing up in a world that is still unfair.UncleThursday said:
True, but irrelevent to the discussion at hand, the majority of cases of abuse are still by men against women. As for rape against children, that's also by and large, committed by men. That other men or boys are also victims doesn't change that fact or make it ok. It's just more evidence that rape and abuse need to be discussed and educated about.UncleThursday said:
Again, this may be true, but it doesn't nullify any other argument. This whole post is just false equivocation.UncleThursday said:
Again, true and awful, but doesn't change the fact of inequality. More false equivocation. That this is unfair to men, doesn't make rape against women ok. We need education for all on this subject.UncleThursday said:
wolfyrik said:
You're just making the same fallacious argument over and over and over again. That women also rape men, is not a solution. I'm baffled as to how you seem to think that this makes it all ok.UncleThursday said:
I'm not putting words in your mouth, I'm pointing out that the point you keep making is entirely irrelevent. What does poverty have to do with the act being typically men on women? Nothing at all, so why bring it up? The only reason I can think of is that you think it should be ignored, because it's only poor people and what they do, doesn't count. Why else bring it up? What other relevence does it have?UncleThursday said:
Perhaps then, Baroness Hale of Richmond, a UK Supreme Court judge, should also be taught the law, then, along with the 4 other judges that agreed with her ruling that shouting is domestic violence?
Maybe this UK solicitor's website http://www.venters.co.uk/DomesticViolence.ink should remove the part that says:
I also love that committing suicide is domestic violence against a woman on that site. And these are UK 'domestic violence specialists'? I mean, yeah... "if I off myself, that'll show my wife just how much abuse I can throw a her!" Jesus fuck. They also list putting you down in front of others or not responding when talked to... have they ever seen how lots of women act in relationships? Getting put down by a wife or girlfriend is practically expected, the same with them not responding when they're pissed.[/quote]
OMG wow, read what I said again, then read wha's on the post you quoted "destructive criticism, mocking etc. These are all forms of control and or/harming the other person. What about that is so hard for you to understand? So you think it's ok to demean and undermine someone, control them through fear and intimidation, shame them in front of other people, so long as you don't raise your fists? Come on, really? You don't see anything wrong with mental abuse and control?
Pot kettle black. You claim that they don't want racism to end, where's your evidence to support this claim? Seriously, read your pown post, you're claiming that people who speak out against racism only do so for wealth and fame. In your mind, it couldn't possibly be because they don't want to see people continuing to suffer as they have in the past? Again I'm not putting words in your mouth, this is what your posts imply. Racism only continues beause the victims of it, keep bringing it up. That's what you're saying.UncleThursday said:
You're blaming the victim.
I first saw this post a day or two ago, but didn't have time to write anything. It has baffled me since I first saw it, though, and I am still baffled. I do not understand what the hell this paragraph has to do with anything. Is there some specific game you're talking about where this stuff happened, or are you insisting that the only way to include gender and identity in a game is if the female character has a horrible design and the writer is ham-fisted in his delivery, or what? Why the hell are you bringing this stuff up as if it's relevant?VVThoughtBox said:
...What? You can't make positive, female role models for women because that won't answer questions about another, existing character's backstory? Huh?VVThoughtBox said:
Don't worry about it. It happens.VVThoughtBox said:
How so? The other "core" games do not include a leveling systems or any objective way to measure Peach's competence, so we can assume Yahtzee is right when he describes her as a useless mental deficient who probably has epilepsy and hemophilia from generations of royal inbreeding.UberGott said:
EDIT: Given how insupportable every one of my descriptions of Peach is, it probably sounds like I'm biased against her. I'm not, really. I've just always loved that image from Zero Punctuation of Peach declaring, "Me brain don't work!"
I only vaguely remember that show. There was an episode where the Princess asked the bros to escort her to a Milli Vanilli concert, and one the plot of which I don't remember but that involved the Princess and Toad ransacking the castle's attic to find some P-wings to save the bros with...UberGott said:
Well, whatever. I'm rambling; nostalgia does that to me. Sorry. I think you at least potentially have a valid point. Depending on which trope the episode was about, it may not have been appropriate to mention the Princess as a positive example defying the trope if she's not defying the trope the episode is about; but if you are going to open the door for discussions about the portrayal of characters in a cartoon series (which I personally think is a misstep in a critique of video games, but whatever), then you probably ought to give credit where credit is due.
It's been my pleasure.UberGott said:
I'm sorry, but could you please rephrase this sentence? I can't make any sense of it.Gindil said:
If it helps, my point is that the accuracy of a message is in no way dependent upon the emotional state of an observer.
Okay, so, what double standard is that, and what does the Bechdel test have to do with it?Gindil said:
Leaving aside for now what "playing a victim" means, please explain how that is hypocritical. I mean, I'm shy and socially awkward, so am I a hypocrite for enjoying fiction about people who can talk to others without sweating?Gindil said:
Why not? Is her source untrustworthy? Did it use faulty methodology to arrive at its conclusion?Gindil said:
sighGindil said:
Please explain where the hypocrisy lies instead of just telling me it's there.
I don't think you know what "Miss Male Character" means. Which male character is Daisy a female version of? Which male character is Impa a female version of? Which male character is Karane a female version of?Gindil said:
For all that I tend to take a side that supports Ms. Sarkeesian, I kind of hate watching her Tropes vs. Women in Video Games videos. She has no animation or charisma in her delivery of any of her lines. She had a lot more personality in other series.UncleThursday said:
First of all, thank you very much for going into more detail in this post.UncleThursday said:
That said, though, I don't really understand what your complaint is. Are you saying that since another playable character would have existed, the description of what Krystal was supposed to do is inaccurate?
I don't think leaving the footage unedited would have hurt her case, but all the same, I'm not sure it's terribly relevant, since the argument isn't about Sabre. It's about how Krystal was downgraded from protagonist to inanimate object, and why that downgrade happened.UncleThursday said:
I tend to be extremely literal, which may be making me overly generous here, but I don't see Ms. Sarkeesian saying or even implying that the change happened because of the joke. She's just reciting a sequence of events: the observation was made; two years later, Dinosaur Planet had become Star Fox Adventures. All I personally take from that paragraph is that Mr. Miyamoto himself made a suggestion, whether facetious or otherwise, and that suggestion was acted upon. I would assume, based on Nintendo's increasingly tiresome reliance on nostalgia to generate game properties, that the decision to make is a Star Fox game was at least partially prompted by a fear of trying new properties, but that doesn't really bear much on why they downgrade Krystal as they did.UncleThursday said:
Do any of those parts alter the fact that he treated Krystal as an object of desire?UncleThursday said:
I think you're trying to define the complaints as being about Dinosaur Planet rather than about Krystal. It's not.UncleThursday said:
Is any part of it untrue, though?UncleThursday said:
Er...so? What about it having another name invalidates the point about a woman being taken as a trophy, as if doing her a service entitles him to claim her as his own? What about the reasons Andromeda was chained up changes that she's just there because others put her there, and only stops being there when someone else removes her?UncleThursday said:
A 93% rate of being kidnapped per appearance in a game seems to kind of bear that out, yeah, unless I'm missing some implied point.UncleThursday said:
Eh. Like I told UberGott earlier, I don't consider anyone in any of those games to be characters, since I define a character as a fictional being who has a personality, a motivation, and a character arc. As far as I'm concerned, everyone in each of those games is just a Halloween costume for the players to wear.UncleThursday said:
That's my stance, though. If it's hers, she could have clarified it.
Do you have a source for that, or are you stating your own opinion as fact here? And even if you're right, does that somehow change the fact that the princess still only exists in those two games to get kidnapped and saved by others?UncleThursday said:
I can answer this a bit. She plays the victim in all of her speaking engagements and media interviews, where the big bad bullies on the Internet were out to get her. Where some dude made a beat Anita Sarkeesian up game that was somehow a threat against her (I'd have to find the interview, which, honestly, I'm not in the mood to do after a 12 hour shift at work); yet happily trots a video of that game out in every single one of her presentations like it's no big deal. Personally, if I felt anyone constituted a genuine threat against me with something online, I wouldn't be trotting it out at every opportunity to bring that threat into view... would you? Also, how that game constituted a viable threat against her is because of... reasons? There are literally THOUSANDS of beat up X person games on Newgrounds and have been since the mid 90s. Should Presidents HW Bush, Clinton, W Bush and Obama be scared of a real and viable threat against them? Bill Gates? Hell, anyone else (both men and women, but the overwhelming majority are to beat up men, famous or not) with a beat them up game on there? Apparently, only this game is worthy of mentioning because it was about her; and that somehow constitutes a real and viable threat against her.JimB said:
She often talks about how the Internet made it a game, and they had a 'home base' to work from... 4Chan. However, she doesn't ever mention that her Kickstarter page was spammed to both 4Chan and Reddit for 3 weeks prior to her YouTube version of the Kickstarter video going up (it cannot be proven either way if she spammed it, someone working with her, or someone else not involved at all, however). She was aware of the Kickstarter video spam on 4Chan and Reddit, however, as that was the main reason she made sure to leave the comments open on the YT version of the Kickstarter video, something she had never done in the past; she knew it would bring in tons of posts against her. She also meticulously screen shotted hundreds, if not thousands of comments from that video to 'prove' how much 'gamers' hated her; all the while knowing she had previous detractors and that 4Chan and Reddit were completely fed up with the spamming of the Kickstarter to their sites. Most gamers didn't even know who she was before Jim 'Thank God For Me' Sterling posted up the Destructoid article ... with a single source for all of his info: Anita's own FemFreq page. Great journalism, Jim! Way to verify and check sources to make sure they aren't biased. /sigh
She still meticulously screenshots any comment she finds hateful against her, even someone just asking if she ever shuts up (after a particularly bitter post she made against Microsoft after MS's press event at E3 last year), and posts them to her Tumblr blog for her fans and followers to see. And with links to those people's tweets and Twitter accounts for her fans to potentially harass. I don't know why those knobheads follow her on Twitter to begin with, I sure as hell don't... but unfortunately some people I do follow love to retweet anytime she posts up a 'Look the Internet is bullying me again!' Tumblr post. And I only follow like 300 people.
She plays that victim card like a fine Stradivarius violin, and people fall for it and tell her how strong she has to be and show their support, etc. every single time. And her speaking engagements and media appearances since the whole Kickstarter fiasco haven't been about empowering women or anything like that; they're simply her constantly retelling her story of victimhood, over 18 months later, with the exact same script and the exact same slides.
She's getting paid to retell her story of her victimization (even if it was engineered, at least in some part, by her). Sounds like the very epitome of a Professional Victim, to me.
I believe he is referencing her hatred of the 'Man With Boobs' trope, yet her own 'visions' of Peach and Zelda have them dressed as men (In Link and Mario's clothes). However, I will get to that particular hypocrisy later in this post when it comes to her "The Last Princess' game idea.JimB said:
She is trying to be 'academic' in her presentation, to try and make this something that could be shown in Women's Study courses in college. Academic presentations are not normally known for their flair over being downright boring. However, her not citing sources, as of yet, especially for the gameplay videos that have been shown to come from LP channels-- while giving the appearance that she made those videos herself (because there is no citing)-- would preclude her work from being accepted by academia, in general. Not citing sources and trying to pass those sources off as one's own original research is called plagiarism. That is not looked kindly upon in academia as it can get a student thrown out of school and instructors fired. She can try to use the fair use claim all she wants, but fair use is a copyright issue, not an academic research or presentation issue.JimB said:
The description as given by Anita, that it was just Krystal's task in Dinosaur Planet, yes,is inaccurate. Notice she doesn't even mention Sabre by name, thus dropping him to a throw away character in her telling, and that it wasn't 'their task' but 'her task'. It's also not even a semi-faithful summation of the story. Even my own summation of the story is lacking in specifics, like the name of the general of the carnivores (Which I honestly don't remember off the top of my head), nor what Random's wizard powers would enable the carnivore army to do (again, something I don't remember off the top of my head). But my summation is more faithful that 'traveling time and fighting monsters with her magical staff.'JimB said:
She already ensured her audience didn't know Sabre's name, nor his importance to the game's plot and gameplay. So, yes, leaving in Sabre's footage would indeed diminish her assertion that it was Krystal's game. It's Krystal's game in her telling, not Sabre and Krystal's game. It's Krystal's quest, not Sabre and Krystal's task. She is leaving out key and important elements to the original design to push the notion that the game was all about Krystal. Thus, while Krystal was an important part of the game (probably 50/50 split with Sabre), she is leaving out the fact that the game even had another character of equal importance. That's the partial truth, while leaving out important things to make her own stance and explanation seem like the total truth. That's the very definition of a lie by omission.JimB said:
That Krystal was downgraded from protagonist to DiD for about 60% or so of StarFox Adventures is a shame, as the game would probably have been better if you could still switch between Fox and Krystal except when story sequences deemed one character be the one being played. However, she is building Krystals importance up from 50% of the story and gameplay to 70%, 80%, 90% or more importance in the process. Remember, in her telling it is Krystal's game, Krystal's quest, Krystal's the only important character-- the other one doesn't even have a name to her audience-- not a quest of siblings to find their father that eventually leads both of them to be much more than they were at the beginning.
"Over the next two years he and Nintendo did just that. They re-wrote and re-designed the game, and released it as Star Fox Adventures for the GameCube in 2002." Her quote. Her matter of fact presentation, making it appear to be an absolute verifiable fact. In her telling of the timeline, it went 'hey, look, Sabre kind of looks like Fox... fuck it, change the whole game to a StarFox game and I'll get the ball rolling at Nintendo HQ." She doesn't know that. None of us who weren't directly involved know the timeline of events that changed Dinosaur Planet into StarFox Adventures.JimB said:
The N64 was already on its last breath when Dinosaur Planet was announced. Nintendo had already pretty much given up on it and had changed focus to the GameCube. Moving Dinosaur Planet to the GameCube meant better graphics (the original graphics were pretty bad, like pretty much every N64 game), more space on the disk over the limited N64 cartridge memory to make a bigger game, better sound, etc. From that standpoint, moving the game from the practically dead N64 to a better system was a great idea. Making it a launch game, as I said, was probably a major decision in making it have a franchise character in the lead. The GC had no real established franchise game at launch without StarFox Adventures, and Nintendo has had a horrible history since the N64 of getting games out in a timely manner. WaveRace isn't what I would consider a franchise, as it had only 1 other game as a N64 launch game. Luigi is part of the Mario franchise, not a franchise unto himself. Pikmin was a new IP, but being designed by Miyamoto and having everyone know that it was being designed by him was probably why they let that go (Miyamoto has a history of creating successful franchises that is, to the best of my knowledge, unmatched in game design).
With no Mario at launch, no Zelda at launch, etc., Nintendo needed an established franchise to sell systems in their corporate mind (ironically, I didn't buy a Nintendo first party game on launch night, I bought Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, instead). And, while you may not like logic, you have to admit, it makes far more logical sense as to why the game was changed to a StarFox franchise game, over Miyamoto getting it changed to stroke his own ego and for the fuck all of it.
Now, had Microsoft not stepped in and bought 51% of Rare from the Stamper brothers during development, and the other 49% Nintendo owned of Rare by the GC's launch; and had Rare not had to get the game out for the launch of the GC, there is a possibility we may have seen the actual Dinosaur Planet see the light of day. If Nintendo had a franchise game at launch that could have gone out, instead, and Rare had more time, I fully believe Dinosaur Planet could have stayed Dinosaur Planet, but just have come out a year or so after the launch of the GC. Personally, it would have made the game more appealing, to me. When I want a StarFox game, I want to be playing in an Arwing and shooting down enemy ships; not playing a Legend of Zelda clone with Fox at the helm. If I'm going to play a Legend of Zelda-ish action adventure game, I'd rather it have different characters than a character I know as a fighter pilot.
Peppy chides him for his actions and I think Krystal informs him, telepathically, of what he has to do to free her from her crystal prison (oh, look, a pun, Krystal is trapped in a crystal... har har). But it's been a long time since I watched the whole scene. It's up on YouTube, I'm sure.JimB said:
Again, Anita is the one playing up Krystal's importance in Dinosaur Planet, not me. She's the one making it seem like Krystal was the only character worth playing in Dinosaur planet, not me. That Sabre was completely dropped, as well as Random, isn't even a blip on the radar to her intended audience. They didn't know about them even being in Krystal's game (emphasis to show how Anita is selling it to her audience), so all she has to show is that Krystal's parts were changed, nothing else.JimB said:
She didn't even bring up that both Sabre and Krystal had their own DiD characters to rescue. Sabre was to rescue a triceratops prince and Krystal was to rescue a pterodactyl princess. Don't bother asking the names, I don't remember. They do appear in SFA, but I'm not sure of the how or why they do. I was never interested in SFA because of the reasons I stated earlier. I was interested in Dinosaur Planet, however.
Is any part of it cited? Remember, she, herself, is trying to make this worthy of academia, not me. Plus it's not the first time she's just completely used passages from Wikipedia or TVTropes as part of her scripts. Even in the "I'm not a gamer/I don't like video games" video, her description of what a mashup is or fanvid or something, I'm not looking through the entire thing to see what it is right now, is ripped directly from Wikipedia (again, someone has videos of her saying things in her videos while highlighting Wikipedia and TVTropes as she says them).JimB said:
Notice you conveniently also forgot the part where I mention in certain tellings of the stories that fall under the Monomyth category (the Perseus/Andromeda story is not the only one, mind you), that the whole DiD part is the woman's own trial and tribulation before becoming something greater; often a ruler or a high religious figure or similar in power.JimB said:
As to the reason it's important? In many of the Monomyth stories, it isn't some dastardly villain snatching the girls to disempower them, it's often their own families that are forced to put them in that position due to some outside force. Whether that's to appease the wrath of angry gods who will otherwise destroy everything the girl loves, or a dragon that will destroy a town if it isn't fed a sacrificial offering of human flesh, the point is it's not to actually disempower the women as much as to tell the story and often the moral behind it. Hey, don't fuck with the gods or your family's life might be at risk in ancient Greek culture; or instead of letting our children get eaten by the dragon for as long as we did, we should stand up and have faith in God and fight it off (the dragon being an allegory for Satan) in medieval times. The hero and the damsel are simply a means of telling the story to get the moral across. Stories in the way back times were often used as teaching tools for not only children, but the more or less uneducated adult population as well, most often for religious reasons, but still as a 'moral guide' acceptable to the civilization at the time.
I know you said you are an atheist, but religion and morality are not intertwined. But, back then, people did intertwine them because of how much control the various religions had over the populace.
In that series, yes. In total appearances? Hardly at 93%, it's 15.66%. Again, though, you're picking only those appearances that fit the quintessential DiD role, not every game she's ever been in. Why do only those particular appearances count? Why are all the other appearances just able to be tossed aside and ignored? That's the very thing Anita is doing. It's called confirmation bias. For a rather famous example of it, look up the EPA's meta study on second hand smoke, where they had a predetermined conclusion and literally just tossed out hundreds of studies that didn't agree with that predetermined conclusion just to make their point seem more firm.JimB said:
Confirmation bias in academia is also highly frowned upon, because it's not real research. Real research takes into account all the data it can to then form a conclusion; it doesn't come to a conclusion first and then only cherry pick data that conforms to that predetermined conclusion. She's the one trying to make this for educational use in academia, but she's also the one using confirmation bias in that same 'educational' program.
You must find a lot of costumes in games, then. Just saying. There's tons and tons of games where the main character has no real story arc, growth or motivation... especially games from the 80s and 90s. Look at the original SMB. Why is Mario there, in the beginning? There's no explanation, no story. Hell, you don't even find out there's a princess to save until you beat Bowser (just called King Koopa back then) in world 1-4, or whichever X-4 you beat him in if you use the warp zones. He just pops out of a castle and starts jumping on owls (goombas) and turtles (koopas); oh and eating mushrooms to grow and picking flowers to throw fire. Even newer games that people love, like Half-Life... Gordon's motivations are barely even present, you know, besides holy shit aliens are attacking and I have to get the ever holy fuck out of here. Plus, he doesn't speak, so we have no idea what he is thinking. He's literally just the player going through the motions of the game. But, you'd be hard pressed to tell fans of the Half-Life series that Gordon Freeman isn't a 'character' in those games. Or Chelle from Portal.JimB said:
What about Link? Is he a character? Before Ocarina of Time, could you find any real motivation behind what he did? Any sense of character growth beyond 'hey, kid, go find these triangles and defeat the evil wizard'? Maybe a slight bit in A Link to the Past, but not the first 2 games, even if even the original Legend of Zelda had a quick paragraph of backstory if kids didn't just instantly hit start and get into the game.
How about Ryu and Ken from the original Street Fighter game? You don't even realize it's a damn tournament until you beat Sagat (something I never did in the original, the guy right before him would eat my quarters like they were going out of style
-- and, yes, I'm that old that I played the original SMB, Street Fighter, Rygar and many others when they were brand spanking new in the arcades). In the original game, they have no personalities, no motivations, etc. But try and tell a Street Fighter fan that Ken and Ryu aren't characters.Your own stance is what works for you, fine. But, it doesn't mesh with what the majority of players feel are the characters in a game.
It's like Anita's flawed determination of what is agency in a character. She claims that the protagonist is doing things on his or her own and thus has agency, while the DiD is denied her own agency by being imprisoned. But, truthfully, no character in any sort of media, games included, has any agency. They have no free will. If a writer decides character X will die at a certain point in the story, then character X has no agency to try and prevent it. The characters have no free will, protagonist or not. They have the illusion of agency, but only as much as the writer gives them. It's even worse in video games. If you put down that controller, does the character you are playing as simply decide to flip you off and go finish the game on its own because it got tired of waiting for you? No. It has only as much ability as the game designers and the player give it. If the player finds it fun to keep running the character into a wall of spikes, there is nothing the character can do to prevent it. It has no agency, no free will, beyond what the player gives it.
Agency is something you and I have, as living, breathing, free willed human beings. We can have our agency denied us by various methods by other people with their own free will or by events beyond our control not caused by another human. Characters in media, however, have no agency. They are tools to get the story from point A to point B. Nothing more. Any illusion of free will is simply that, an illusion granted to the character by the person writing the story. The writer has all the agency when writing, just as the player has all the agency when playing. Oedipus can never decide on his own to not kill his father and marry his mother. Mario can never decide, on his own, to go defeat Bowser. The Doctor can never decide, on his own, to travel back and save Adric from blowing up on a spaceship 65 million years in Earth's past. Etc.
Her version of agency works for her, but it is not what agency truly means. Only living things have any degree of agency; characters in any media, games included, have no agency.
http://nintendoeverything.com/takemoto-on-why-peach-isnt-playable-in-new-super-mario-bros-u/JimB said:
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2012/11/new_super_mario_bros_u_director_explains_why_peach_isnt_a_playable_character
As I said, lazy game design. Lazy game design falls back on the old lazy story. She could have been playable, but the designers went for the quick and easy way. She is playable in whatever the new Mario game is on the Wii U; I don't have one, so I haven't truly cared about a Mario game in a long time... the last one I played was Mario Sunshine, and I didn't even finish it.
Now, getting back to the hypocrisy thing... One of the titles of the videos, that has yet to be released, is "Man with Boobs." It's fairly obvious what she means by this, as the man with boobs is well known: a woman acting like a man, most often acting macho, using violence as a main form of problem solving, dressing like a man, seeking revenge, etc. A very relevant example would be Vasquez from the movie Aliens. She's rougher and tougher and more willing to shoot anything that moves than any man on the entire colonial marines squad she is on. So, it's safe to assume one of the main talking points about the Man with Boobs video will be Lara Croft. Maybe Samus Aran (and, oh Christ the amount of flack she'll get if she decides to call Samus a man with boobs...)
So, it's fairly obvious that since Anita is making an entire video on the subject of the man with boobs trope (eventually, this one might make it out by 2015 at the current rate), she finds it sexist, demeaning to women, disempowering, whatever she's going to call it. It's a bad thing (TM) in her mind.
So, obviously, Anita would never suggest that a man with boobs is a good thing; right?
Wrong.
Watch that entire presentation about the game idea for "The Last Princess" again. Seriously look at it. You know, that idea of an empowered female character... who dresses like a man, cuts a bloody swathe through an untold number of male soldiers (should we bring up the Men are the Disposable Gender trope she will never bother bringing up?) and then cold bloodedly murders the royal council in revenge for them imprisoning her? What does that sound like?
HOLY FUCKSHIT! THE LAST PRINCESS IS A GAME IDEA ABOUT A MAN WITH BOOBS!!!!!!!!111!!!!!!one!!!!!eleventy-one
And this is one Anita (supposedly) came up with on her own! Her own goddamn videos and the best idea for an empowered woman protagonist is a man with boobs... the very subject of one of her upcoming videos. Not that this is surprising, considering her own thesis in school showed she couldn't come up with as many positive female traits for characters as positive male traits... including not being able to list self-control as a positive female trait.
As UberGott said she doesn't even know how to properly represent the trope she finds bad, as she'll say it's bad one second and in the very same breath suggest it as a positive female representation that should be used more. Man with boobs BAD! Last Princess (a man with boobs) GOOD! (say it like the old Metallicops animations from Newgrounds).
She talks out of both sides of her mouth at the same time. She claims to want female empowerment, but claims victim status at every opportunity. She claims the man with boobs trope is damaging to women, then suggest the very same trope as a positive female representation that people should aspire to. She claims to be able to help the gaming industry with her consulting, but can't even keep her own tropes straight in her own video series as to what is good or bad for women.
With luck, as more people and game companies see this, she'll fade back into radical gender feminist space, where she belongs. She'll stop getting attention about subjects she obviously has zero clue about, stop getting speaking gigs, and fade back into internet obscurity from hence she came. Then we can maybe get someone who has a goddamn clue about being a woman in the gaming industry talk about the issues Anita thinks she knows about... like Jayde Raymond, perhaps. I'd listen to her on the subject; being as she's been in the gaming industry for a while, dealt with her own issues regarding abusive treatment from gamers, is well articulated and is smarter than a whole shitton of people on this planet.
In your opinion! In your opinion she's these things, you have not proven that either here or in a court of law and other people disagree with you. In other words, you're wishing harm on someone because you disagree with them. You really don't get why this is a problem, do you? Wishing someone harm is horrific, especially over something like gaming, just because you don't like the way they do things. If you don't like what someone says, you demonstrate that they're wrong, you don't wish for them to suffer. That's just sick.Kathinka said:
Wow. That is a big ol' wall of text. I will do my best to remember to get to it some time tomorrow when I will not be away from a computer all day, but since I foolishly opened the PM telling me this post is here, I'm lacking that bright yellow reminder I usually rely on for this sort of thing, so be patient with me.UncleThursday said: