Well, the game says over the top character designs, but over the top character designs is a lot of gaming, hell it's VANILLAWARE THEMSELVES pretty much, it's hard to be viewed as a parody if it doesn't do so without self awareness AS WELL AS bring some other things to the table, if you do something ironically, but still do it anyway....you are just doing it, it's amusing someone makes fun of a qucktime event or a silly feature in a game such as them....but when you do it in a manner that means I still have to do it, I find you have clearly missed the point, a parody of quicktime events that kill you instantly would be Assassins Creed 2, you CAN press buttons to influence minor things in the cutscenes, but never actually change the game, nor do you suffer from failing, it's chucking them in and pointing them out without sticking a sign over it nor do they force me through the same fate I despise while giddily saying "Oh you QTE you~".
How is Dragon's Crown a parody?
- Thread starter Erttheking
- Start date
Recommended Videos
It's an attempt at parody, but the problem with it is that designs like those in Dragon's Crown have been done with a straight face so many times that it is unrecognizable as parody. Now, if he's wanted to make it an obvious and effective parody, the women should have had boobs so large that they constantly get in the way, while the men are so massively muscular that it actually looks uncomfortable to walk. That would have been obvious parody because it would have been visibly showing how ridiculous the designs are.
The design may be intended as parody, but it's not effectively presented as parody.
The design may be intended as parody, but it's not effectively presented as parody.
Those are good points, but I think there are a couple of things you are not accounting for:Fox12 said:
While the author may know his work inside and out, he cannot escape himself, his own preconceptions and his own subconscious. So even though he knows his work inside-and-out, his view still isn't objective. It remains as subjective and as limited as everyone else's. It is entirely possible for an author to create something great without realizing why it is great, why it resonates with so many people etc. In that sense, he doesn't know "how it ticks".
Furthermore, all communication between subjects is inherently subjective. In that sense, there is really no objective scale of how "well you understand a work" (despite schools grading on that issue). The question is do you understand the same things as the author. I don't see how it follows that an author has any interpretative authority over his work by virtue of being the creator. What rule does that follow from?
The restriction that any interpretation needs to hinge on a "hint" by the author also seems rather meaningless to me, because as I said, every communication is subjective. There can therefore be no objective standard as to what the author has hinted at, everyone will see different "hints". What interpretations we consider apropriately based on the work is mostly a matter of convention.
On Topic: The question I haven't seen asked very much in this thread is why does it matter whether or not it counts as "parody"?
There are other ways to make a character visually distinct than slapping giant boobs/muscles onto them. Sure, body shape can do it, but so can color scheme, clothing, weapons, or accessories. And even if the body shape is the identifiable feature, that doesn't mean it has to be so ridiculously sexualized as Dragon's Crown's characters. This is the silliest argument I've ever heard.Louzerman102 said:
I give the label sexy easily because I've actually played this game, and it seems like you haven't. What other purpose do you think the designers had in mind when they made the shop keepers entire animation consist of thrusting her chest at the camera dressed only in wispy almost see-through cloth, or when the battle nun thrusts her metal-thong crotch at the camera, or the mermaid whose entire portrait is just one concentrated shot on her strangely human ass. I'm sure the designers also had additional goals in mind when designing these characters, but they were undeniably designed to be sexy. Hell even the games inspiration in aping 70's and 80's fantasy covers shows this, those covers were specifically designed to attract the (at the time) target audience of white, straight, male, nerds, so the men were always powerful and the females always sexy, that's what sold.Ipsen said:
Now to the second part of your post, I see this "but its based on Medieval history, and women's right weren't around back then" argument all the time, and it's always conveniently used to cherry pick what the dark ages were actually like. Here's a fun little bit that argument always seems to conveniently miss, women actually lost rights in many areas after the start of the Renaissance. In the dark ages so many men were out fighting crusades and wars for the crown, that it became the norm to leave running many businesses to the women when their fathers or spouses were gone. Many of those women consolidated their power in that age and at one point women held an organized monopoly on the entire beer brewing process and sales for the entire British Islands. Many women were also well educated by the church, oftentimes moreso than men as women who became nuns or headed abbeys and churches at the time were essentially considered leaders in the community. Around the time of the Renaissance population started booming and new ideas were being introduced much faster than they used to the church in fear of losing it's power became much more reactionary and conservative in some of it's policies. Then we got movements like puritanism that brought all that over to America. When people use the Historical Accuracy argument, they are almost always using Hollywood history rather than what the middle ages were actually like (much of the modern sexual repression thing was also a consequence of reactionary church policy in the Renaissance as well, the middle ages was actually pretty damn free in some respects).
As another point Dragon's Crown has pretty much zero historical accuracy, and it's titillation is pretty much all following modern standards and practices with a thin veneer of renfair style medieval setting laid over the top. The game is Fantasy through and through, but then that's where we run into problems again. Fantasy has no limits (it certainly isn't even required to be set in the middle ages) so again the developers choice to make the game so chock full of blatant sexualization was their choice and their choice alone. The characters fit typical medieval fantasy archetypes, but the choice to give the mermaid a human ass, the nun a plate mail thong (and have her thrust it at the camera), and to have the fairy lay towards the camera with open legs in a goblet giving the camera a sultry look, was all on the developers, and pretty much anyone with an ounce of honesty will admit that it's blatant sexualization, and it only consistently applies to female character (unless musclebound men with near invisible nipples is your fetish, and even then the barbarian doesn't even have the decency to flex for the camera).
Your last comment about changing things at the source makes no sense to me, have you read any of my previous posts in this thread? I bought the game, I like it as well, but I won't sit around and make excuses about parody this or homage that, the female characters were sexualized in this game to an extreme degree, and I won't make excuses for it, it is what it is and prospective buyers should be aware that the sorceress is only the tip of the iceberg in this game. I don't want to change the sexualization in the game even if some of it is eye-rollingly bad, again, it is what it is. Now if we are talking about the occasionally clunky combat, or the screen that gets so cluttered at times I can lose track of my character for a good 20 seconds, then sure point me at this mythical source so I can get some changes made.
Seriously don't know how many times I have to hammer this in to people, criticism is not equivalent to hatred or disliking something as a whole, that's not how discussion works, only the tiny tiny minority exist on the extreme ends of a spectrum and actually sees things in black and white.
Bad vs. Good character design is not being debated in my statement. Bad characters can be memorable just as easily as good characters can be bland/forgettable.Thebazilly said:
The point of my post was to demonstrate that there are a lot of fantasy fiction in the world yet very few people would confuse a Dragon's Crown character with a Dungeons and Dragons character (for example), regardless of the quality of character design.
It's a parody of Frank Frazetta's art-style. If you can't see it as that, I don't really know what to tell you, it's not even a subtle nod. Frazetta is the guy who painted those outlandish Conan the Barbarian paintings that are perhaps hiding in the back of your subconscious. He's known for muted colors and hilarious anatomy and lots of naked skin.
you take something like this
which is already sort of pumped up in terms of its content, and you take everything about it, pump it up to 15, and view it through a slightly manga-like mindset, and you get this
and yeah, it's ugly, but if you don't at least accept it as the parody it's clearly intended to be, then you're going to miss the whole point. It seems like their goal with the Amazon was to reveal as much skin while being absolutely the least titillating character ever conceived. But that's just what it is. Their whole art designed is basically lifted from Frazetta and other Fantasy artists.
you take something like this
which is already sort of pumped up in terms of its content, and you take everything about it, pump it up to 15, and view it through a slightly manga-like mindset, and you get this
and yeah, it's ugly, but if you don't at least accept it as the parody it's clearly intended to be, then you're going to miss the whole point. It seems like their goal with the Amazon was to reveal as much skin while being absolutely the least titillating character ever conceived. But that's just what it is. Their whole art designed is basically lifted from Frazetta and other Fantasy artists.