Hogwarts Legacy Will Allow For Transgender Characters

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Trunkage

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A handful of people not raising their kid with gender expectations isn't "society becoming a parody of itself". Thinking gender is so important for an infant that you're making colored IEDs to announce it is a parody of society though.
I would say the same thing about colours having some sort of gendered meaning. That stuff is utter nonsense
 
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Casual Shinji

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A muggle like you would say that. That is why your people are inferior. That and not having magic.
That this notion seems to unironically course through the story with both the good guys and the bad guys is already kinda fucked.
 
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Casual Shinji

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We are in a period of time when the idea that lineage, ancestry and genes are what defines you as special and heroic is becoming increasingly strong again (Rise of Skywalker, Wandavision, Potterverse etc.), which is kind of sad. As far as I remember even OG Potter was a rally cry against that eugenic shit seeing as how Harry was a half-blood and what made him special was not his dad's awesome wizardry but his muggle mother's self-sacrificing love for him which made Voldemort's curse fail. As Rowling kept writing, the idea of really strong wizard lines seems to have become increasingly entrenched though, which sort of runs counter to the original message of Harry Potter.
Yeah, but wasn't the mom a wizard too though? I've only ever seen the movies, but there never seemed to be any sort of real overlap between the magic world and the normal world. And that's always bugged me for multiple reasons, both thematic and practical. There's the notion that one section of humanity can just apparently run everything and leave out everyone else, because 'eh, they're just a bunch of weak normies who can't contribute anything to our cool magic world'. Which would be an engaging hook if this was the bad guys' philosophy, or a societal injustice, but the good guys seemingly harbor the same sentiments.

And this then also makes this magic world come across as terribly outdated. I mean, there's areas that look like they're straight out of the middle-ages. Would you really just ignore all the modern conveniences ontop of having magic? And I don't think this ever gets adressed as an issue that maybe they need to move past. We're just supposed to go 'these are the magic people who live in magicland, and these are the normies who live in normieland, and never the two shall meet' as a rule for buying into this world, I guess.

And I suspect Rowling only set this universe up like that so that the magic world can feel extra special in comparison to the normal world. Because the only reason the normal world seems to ever get in involved in the Potterverse is when it shows characters going from that setting into the magical setting. As if to say 'yeah, fuck that world and all the people in it; THIS is where all the cool shit happens'. And I'm sure that to little kids this is extremely inticing. And while I liked the spirited away sort of stories even long into my twenties, the way Harry Potter did it always rubbed me the wrong way.
 
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BrawlMan

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Yeah, but wasn't the mom a wizard too though? I've only ever seen the movies, but there never seemed to be any sort of real overlap between the magic world and the normal world. And that's always bugged me for multiple reasons, both thematic and practical. There's the notion that one section of humanity can just apparently run everything and leave out everyone else, because 'eh, they're just a bunch of weak normies who can't contribute anything to our cool magic world'. Which would be an engaging hook if this was the bad guys' philosophy, or a societal injustice, but the good guys seemingly harbor the same sentiments.

And this then also makes this magic world come across as terribly outdated. I mean, there's areas that look like they're straight out of the middle-ages. Would you really just ignore all the modern conveniences ontop of having magic? And I don't think this ever gets adressed as an issue that maybe they need to move past. We're just supposed to go 'these are the magic people who live in magicland, and these are the normies who live in normieland, and never the two shall meet' as a rule for buying into this world, I guess.

And I suspect Rowling only set this universe up like that so that the magic world can feel extra special in comparison to the normal world. Because the only reason the normal world seems to ever get in involved in the Potterverse is when it shows characters going from that setting into the magical setting. As if to say 'yeah, fuck that world and all the people in it; THIS is where all the cool shit happens'. And I'm sure that to little kids this is extremely inticing. And while I liked the spirited away sort of stories even long into my twenties, the way Harry Potter did it always rubbed me the wrong way.
If you think that's bad, wait until you read Shaman King. The manga is even worse in this regard. The author seems to have a really big hate boner for humanity. Because they're "weak, impotent, lazy, cruel, selfish, and hate nature". What's worse is that the story tries to say that there are no evil shamans only good, well intentioned, or "misguided". Thankfully, the anime adaption does not suffer from this. Seriously, fuck the manga, its ending, and its sequel too.
 
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Casual Shinji

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His mother was a normal human, which makes Harry a half-blood (which is a recurring plot point for him being bullied by Malfoy and ostracized by other students in the first few books). It is also her family that takes him in after the parents die, which is why they don't know anything about magic.
Then what was with the whole Snape being in love with her, and them being best friends at Hogwarts? Unless I'm remembering that wrong. Also, didn't her sister super resent her for having magic and being allowed to go to Hogwarts, and that's why she treats Harry like shit and is aggresively against him using magic? I seem to remember the movies talking about that.
 
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Thaluikhain

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His mother was a normal human, which makes Harry a half-blood (which is a recurring plot point for him being bullied by Malfoy and ostracized by other students in the first few books). It is also her family that takes him in after the parents die, which is why they don't know anything about magic.
His mother was a witch, but she came from a non-magic family. He isn't particularly bullied because of that (though he is for various other reasons), just he doesn't know a lot of stuff that people born into magic families do, but the same is true of Hermione and others.

Rowlings is weird to me in that she began her writing career as this really thoughtful writer who did basic but gentle takes on racism (the muggle/half blood thing), bullying (Harry's dynamic with everyone not Ron, Hermione and Luna in the first book), identity and all those things that children and YA books tend to deal with. It all comes across as very wholesome and progressive in the OG book series but then she just flew off the handle and got really weird as she wrote all the supplemental materials and began spatting on Twitter.

I can see why a lot of Potter fans feel betrayed by Rowling, because she is the person that first introduced them to inclusive, progressive ideals in the Potter books and now she's seemingly taking a dump on those things her first books held up as virtues and strengths.
Yeah, second that.

Then what was with the whole Snape being in love with her, and them being best friends at Hogwarts? Unless I'm remembering that wrong. Also, didn't her sister super resent her for having magic and being allowed to go to Hogwarts, and that's why she treats Harry like shit and is aggresively against him using magic? I seem to remember the movies talking about that.
You're not remembering that wrong, all that is correct.
 
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Samtemdo8

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Damn straight!
I had a Game Gear back in the day. I remember playing Master System Sonic and Mortal Kombat 2 port.

Loved that it had built in light screen, and hated Nintendo for taking so long with the Gameboy when Sega has done it years ago.

(I know they've already done it before the SP, but for some baffling reason they never released it outside Japan)
 
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Hawki

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As far as I remember even OG Potter was a rally cry against that eugenic shit seeing as how Harry was a half-blood and what made him special was not his dad's awesome wizardry but his muggle mother's self-sacrificing love for him which made Voldemort's curse fail. As Rowling kept writing, the idea of really strong wizard lines seems to have become increasingly entrenched though, which sort of runs counter to the original message of Harry Potter.
Where does that happen though? Something that's reitrated multiple times throughout the books is that your bloodline doesn't define you. This is carried over all the way to the last book. By Cursed Child, Hermione's become minster of magic, despite being a Muggle-born for instance.

As much as the Marvel movies catch flak, I at least like them because out of all the heroes in them there's only one (Thor, being a God, and maybe Star Lord, though I'd argue that he's a subversion) who is explicitly special because of lineage. All the others, Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Panther etc., are all people who are heroes because of either their personality or things they've worked hard to learn and master. Even as Iron Man and Black Panther have inherited fortunes that's not what makes them heroes, but rather that they are ready to put their wealth or royal privilege towards helping others and the greater good.
Isn't that kind of par for the course for Marvel in general though?
 

Hawki

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Yeah, but wasn't the mom a wizard too though? I've only ever seen the movies, but there never seemed to be any sort of real overlap between the magic world and the normal world. And that's always bugged me for multiple reasons, both thematic and practical. There's the notion that one section of humanity can just apparently run everything and leave out everyone else, because 'eh, they're just a bunch of weak normies who can't contribute anything to our cool magic world'. Which would be an engaging hook if this was the bad guys' philosophy, or a societal injustice, but the good guys seemingly harbor the same sentiments.

And this then also makes this magic world come across as terribly outdated. I mean, there's areas that look like they're straight out of the middle-ages. Would you really just ignore all the modern conveniences ontop of having magic? And I don't think this ever gets adressed as an issue that maybe they need to move past. We're just supposed to go 'these are the magic people who live in magicland, and these are the normies who live in normieland, and never the two shall meet' as a rule for buying into this world, I guess.

And I suspect Rowling only set this universe up like that so that the magic world can feel extra special in comparison to the normal world. Because the only reason the normal world seems to ever get in involved in the Potterverse is when it shows characters going from that setting into the magical setting. As if to say 'yeah, fuck that world and all the people in it; THIS is where all the cool shit happens'. And I'm sure that to little kids this is extremely inticing. And while I liked the spirited away sort of stories even long into my twenties, the way Harry Potter did it always rubbed me the wrong way.
So, the movies don't go into this nearly as in-depth as the books, but there's a few things to keep in mind:

-In-universe, wizards have reason to be wary of Muggles, given the history of witch-burnings and whatnot (presumably this happened in other countries too, since the Wizarding World has their own UN-equivalent who decided years ago it was best to segregate themselves from Muggles).

-Wizards in general are prejudiced against Muggles, ranging from mild disdain ("oh those silly normies who are too silly to recognise magic") to outright loathing (as in, Nazi-esque loathing). However, the books don't see this as a good thing, since there's multiple times where characters are critical of the Wizarding World's segregation from, and ignorance of, Muggles. Off the top of my head, this includes book 4 (where Dumbledore bothering to read Muggle newspapers is an oddity, yet gives him insight into Voldemort's activities), and book 7 (where Kingsly Shacklebolt, when asked about the notion that Muggle lives are worth less, says (paraphrased) "if you want to go by that logic, then we might as well start putting pure-blood lives over half-bloods, half-bloods over Muggle-borns, and so on" (he puts it far more eloquently than that).

-Concerning the Wizarding World itself, it is flawed. That's kind of a plot point. This isn't just an observation from the reader, this is something that Dumbledore states in book 5 where (paraphrased), "we wizards have looked down on other creatures too long, and now we're paying the price for it."

Basically, if you depict a flawed world, and do so intentionally, I don't see that as a problem.
 

Hawki

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For sure, but isn't that also the entire appeal of Harry Potter? Just like how the appeal of Narnia isn't that The Blitz is happening and is the reason the children are in the country side but rather that they find this fantasy wonderland they can play in. Rowlings is weird to me in that she began her writing career as this really thoughtful writer who did basic but gentle takes on racism (the muggle/half blood thing), bullying (Harry's dynamic with everyone not Ron, Hermione and Luna in the first book), identity and all those things that children and YA books tend to deal with. It all comes across as very wholesome and progressive in the OG book series but then she just flew off the handle and got really weird as she wrote all the supplemental materials and began spatting on Twitter.

I can see why a lot of Potter fans feel betrayed by Rowling, because she is the person that first introduced them to inclusive, progressive ideals in the Potter books and now she's seemingly taking a dump on those things her first books held up as virtues and strengths.
I think that's a reasonable take, but I don't think that's the full story.

What's irritated me is that Rowling's tried to apply 'retroactive wokeness' to the books,. "Why yes, Dumbledore WAS gay, even though that's never shown." "Why yes, lycanthropy IS a metaphor for AIDS, despite there being no real evidence for that." "Why yes, Hermione's skin colour WAS never specified (a lie), so of course her actress can be black" (which isn't a problem, as I've specified earlier - it's an unneeded solution for a non-existent problem). "Why yes, there ARE Jewish students at Hogwarts, even though I've never shown any." (which left me wondering why people were even asking - how does religion even factor in, especially since Abrahamic religions aren't exactly charitable towards witchcraft).

Thing is, I disagree with a lot of fan interpretations (that the house elves are slaves, that the goblins are anti-semitic, etc.), but Rowling bugs me more here. The Harry Potter books were written in the 90s to 2000s, and take place almost entirely in the former of those decades. There's nothing wrong with them not being as 'woke' as current material, but FFS Rowling, stop claiming that stuff was there that wasn't. People aren't stupid. They can smell bullshit from a mile away, and retroactively claiming brownie points isn't fooling anyone.
 

Thaluikhain

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-In-universe, wizards have reason to be wary of Muggles, given the history of witch-burnings and whatnot (presumably this happened in other countries too, since the Wizarding World has their own UN-equivalent who decided years ago it was best to segregate themselves from Muggles).
Actually, no, in the beginning of one book (I think the third) it's said that witchburnings didn't get real witches as protection from fire is a really easy spell apparently. And that at least one witch allowed themselves to be burned multiple times under different names because they were kinky, which given she's talking about horrific murder, doesn't come across as funny.

-Concerning the Wizarding World itself, it is flawed. That's kind of a plot point. This isn't just an observation from the reader, this is something that Dumbledore states in book 5 where (paraphrased), "we wizards have looked down on other creatures too long, and now we're paying the price for it."

Basically, if you depict a flawed world, and do so intentionally, I don't see that as a problem.
Well, there's the issue that this isn't really addressed. Kill Voldemort, go back to the status quo drag them further left afterwards and everything is fine.
 
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Dwarvenhobble

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Do keep in mind that if we're focusing on Dr. Verma's research it's conclusion actually gets debunked in the documentary you posted itself, by her when she claims and I'm paraphrasing (Not rewatching it again to be able to pinpoint the exact moment and quote it verbatim it's around 32:40 minute mark, also what I said is very different from what she says but ultimately doesn't misrepresent what she said.) "These differences do not show up in children, as their results are mostly similar despite gender, it starts showing up around 16-17 years old meaning that it could be an issue of nurture rather than purely biological", the idea repeats itself again at the end of the documentary when Professor Gina Rippon's research is shown, which is actually a direct response to studies examining the connecting pathways in the brains, which means a response to Dr. Verma's research, the conclusion she has is actually very in line with that disclaimer Dr. Verma added to her results, she says the human brain is very plastic and adaptable and studies show that there's actually no such thing as being wired towards maths for example and then cites an experiment in which the test from the beginning of the documentary is repeated but the explanation of what it is is changed, and simply due to this very small change of perspective the results changed drastically and when repeated in different countries the results were consistent, meaning it's not as clear cut and the way the brain acts is actually very much subject to change depending on circumstance.
Yes and no.
Yes we know the differences are only visible in adults.
No as the whole documentary is exploring we don't know if it is nature or nurture and we may never know because to find out would require some seriously unethical experiments on children. What we can say is at present adults do show neurological differences in the brain between men and women (worth pointing out that present research into trans individuals based on Dr Verma's research shows their brains to be more in line with their gender identity than birth sex). The other thing pointed out in the documentary is seemingly the differences exist regardless of lets say professional acumen. As was shown the woman scientist in the program had one of the same reactions to other women to one of the experiments (the Swivel chair thing)

Sorry for the late response, I knew I had to rewatch that documentary again to respond properly because even though I had watched it years ago I didn't remember it very well and I just didn't want to, that being said even though a lot of it is outdated and it and it has a fundamental flaw of not really discussing anything that isn't gender binary, it's actually a lot better than I remember, it does present everything as if both the argument of the man and the woman are equal, which is weird because Dr. Verma is placed on the side of the guy even though her results disagree with him, I mean it's an entertaining framing device but it does come with the flaw of presenting the research as skewed towards the argument that the interviewer chosen for each segment is arguing in favour of, which is simply not the case.
Her results technically agree with him in so far as "Well adults are like this so this is the reality we have to work with for now unless we can prove somehow we can modify peoples brains somehow to form into something other than one or the other main overall structure.


But you see that's fine, because mediocre or bad representation is a bit better that no representation at all, otherwise you get cultural alienation and it's better to have the argument of whether it was executed well or not than to have no argument, I think at least.
I strongly disagree.
E.G. I have Coeliac (Genetic gluten / wheat intolerance). There's actually a character in the Arrowverse who says he's gluten intolerant at one point. I thought cool so finally people will understand a bit better and I won't have to deal with feeling bad having to create possible extra work for people due to it. Nope next episode he's drinking a beer, the same beer as everyone else. if it were good representation he wouldn't be able to because while there is Gluten free beer out there it's not that widely available and it's far easier to just have something else instead. If it's about people learning about things then that's bad representation of a condition I have because now people will think I can just crack open a beer with everyone else no problem and if I say otherwise I'm just being awkward because their perception of it if they don't know me but do remember the character on TV would be that it would be fine for me to have the beer.
 

Dwarvenhobble

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But side-lining the previous main cast isn't necessarily a bad thing, an excellent example of this is the previously mentioned Metal Gear Solid 2 which is considered one of the best games in that franchise, even if general consensus is that 3 is the best, a game that is a prequel and includes none of the main cast BTW, another example would be Devil May Cry 4, which while initially it received a lot of backlash for focusing on Nero and side-lining it's now a beloved game in the franchise and now people really like Nero, they also really like Raiden now.
Thing is said titles kinda work by doing it right away rather than trying to balance the two. Like you get 1 Mission as Snake in MGS 2 then the whole rest of the game is Raiden. You don't spend about half the game as Snake then suddenly it's Raiden time.

So anyways, while I get that side-lining the main cast is generally disliked by fans, it's not really reflective of the quality of a product and generally tends to be accepted over time and attitudes towards it tend to change as time goes on, again I haven't played the game being discussed, so I can't really offer an honest opinion of what I think of that particular game, as such I prefer to express nothing as surely everything I have to say cannot be anything but expressing opinions of people that aren't me.

I'm just looking at the general critical reception, while it's true that it does have a lot of negative reviews, specially by users, even the users tend to have given it more critical praise than panning, which by no means overwhelming as it's closely split, it is overall trending towards good rather than bad, this is what you'll see if you look up the game, that being said, it is a lot more mixed than the average AAA game, what's interesting though that the mixed critical response comes from a large amount of overwhelmingly positive response and overwhelmingly negative response and only a minimal mixed response, meaning that it's a polarizing game, meaning it's probably worth trying out to se if I'll either love it or hate it, thought I guess I could be one of the few that just think it's mediocre instead.
I have a feeling that the game will be largely relegated to history in 10 years like a number of Oscar Winners that the public mostly disagreed with the critics on. Ultimately The Last of US Part II's theme and story is basically done in the show Hell on Wheels but done far better. Hell on Wheels achieves what The Last of Us Part II was seemingly trying to do with it's narrative by really building up the desire to watch a character get revenge by having the character be a real villain but a somewhat sympathetic one as you learn how he came to be how he is and why he acts as he does basically having his faith in humanity destroyed and taking it out on some-one else. It then does a 2 or 3 episode sequence which goes from somewhat cliche western gunfight round a farmstead to a prorogued slugfest in a desert like I'm talking a near 30 minute long fist fight where each is worn down more and more only barely able to stand and fight just out of anger at the other. Then a whole episode about the guy villain being hung which isn't framed as a great success or triumph but a failure that it's had to come to this and that the villain is so twisted by what he went through that there is no other option really.
 

CriticalGaming

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You should really watch better YouTubers than UEG. That guy, as far as I'm aware, has literally no background in the games industry at all. I don't think I've ever seen a developer actually interact with him, he's definitely not speaking with people in the trenches and having any actual information to comment on other than what he's reading on the games media outlets he hates and Twitter.
I mostly point the video out because of the commentary on yet another "cancelling".

Which you seem to agree with in your very next paragraph. And I think you and I both know what I think of most games journalists considering previous threads, the fact that he doesn't have any links to the industry directly is a good thing imo.

Not to mention you don't need to be have any direct contact with the industry to have opinions on it, otherwise this entire forum would be pointless as it is a bunch of gamers who are just talking about what they see going on within the industry from an outside perspective.
 
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Dwarvenhobble

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You should really watch better YouTubers than UEG. That guy, as far as I'm aware, has literally no background in the games industry at all. I don't think I've ever seen a developer actually interact with him, he's definitely not speaking with people in the trenches and having any actual information to comment on other than what he's reading on the games media outlets he hates and Twitter.

Really not a good source of information for anything worthwhile.
Neither am I but I still managed something good enough that Jason Schreier of all people sourced something I wrote as part of what lead to one of his pieces. Yahtzee started off where his whole background in the industry was making point and click adventures distributed freely them made some reviews and was picked up because he was doing interesting stuff.

Michael Jones of Rooster Teeth was an electrician who made videos getting angry and bad / hard video games now he's a pretty well known name and at least adjacent to the games industry.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking the industry core bubble is all there is. I remember not that long ago on twitter you yourself were on about how certain people in the games journalism sphere were getting mad at you and The Escapist site for not acting a certain way. Yet I'd hope The site isn't failing and this is one of the few sites I think is still pretty respectable and trying to do good work because unlike many other site you are covering indie games and title I've not heard of sometimes and not merely the AAA SEO optimised algorithmically determined optimal thing. You're leading the way not following some expected trend.

Is UEG a great source of info? Who knows. But I will say he's echoing similar sentiments to what you've expressed on twitter before about how some people really had axes to grind against the Escapist and wanted you to go a certain way with it and you chose not to which got them mad.

I will say based on my knowledge of UEG he actually started off as a streamer who specialised in Streaming "The Division" and did likely have some contact with Ubisoft devs etc when he used to stream and cover that title. As for developer interaction I used to have 350 twitter followers and got some interaction with devs (often small indie devs) and I think with how twitter is going some devs likely have gone back to email exchanges etc. So while I doubt you are don't fall into the trap of thinking twitter is all there is.



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