It Never Ends

[Lee Oyd]

"Gay = bad" isn't homophobia you guys, it's like...ironic and shit. HONEST!

 

[Erttheking]

Spoiler

Art has not changed a bit over the millennia.

Might want to put a NSFW tag on that one.

Please tell me you are joking.

I see three guys with their junk bare. No I am not.

 

[1337mokro]

Spoiler

Art has not changed a bit over the millennia.

Might want to put a NSFW tag on that one.

Please tell me you are joking.

I see three guys with their junk bare. No I am not.

You at work in the Vatican or something?

Just say you are appreciating FINE ART, because that's what it is if it's made by a dead guy. If it's made by a living person it's horribly sexist and wrong

 

[Erttheking]

Spoiler

Art has not changed a bit over the millennia.

Might want to put a NSFW tag on that one.

Please tell me you are joking.

I see three guys with their junk bare. No I am not.

You at work in the Vatican or something?

Just say you are appreciating FINE ART, because that's what it is if it's made by a dead guy. If it's made by a living person it's horribly sexist and wrong

I'm just saying someone at work might not look that good if their boss comes in and sees them looking at that.

 

[1337mokro]

Spoiler

Art has not changed a bit over the millennia.

Might want to put a NSFW tag on that one.

Please tell me you are joking.

I see three guys with their junk bare. No I am not.

You at work in the Vatican or something?

Just say you are appreciating FINE ART, because that's what it is if it's made by a dead guy. If it's made by a living person it's horribly sexist and wrong

I'm just saying someone at work might not look that good if their boss comes in and sees them looking at that.

Or it could go like this:

"What is that John? The famous statue of the world renowned tale of the siege of Troy?! Oh yes the wise seer struck down by the wrath of the gods when he tried to expose the horse as fake! My you have a fine taste in art my good man, I won't say much but a chap who knows his classics tends to do well on evaluation day."

Just saying a dick is a dick, but I don't know why people would get uppity of a dick that is considered art, I mean even the Vatican display this thing full frontal

 

[rasputin0009]

Why does Bob's writing come off as so incredibly insincere? Maybe it's just the neutral argument that he's trying so hard to convey. I couldn't actually point to what "side" he's on, I just don't trust his words. Any English Majors want to help me out here?

 

[RJ Dalton]

Is my primary objective to this representation allowed to be that huge breasts are just a turnoff to me?

Yes and no. Breasts that size are a turnoff, but objecting for reasons of turnoff implies you think female characters should all turn you on, and any design that doesn't is wrong. Careful....

What if I'm turned on by intelligence and the reason huge boobs are a turnoff is because it's a shallow attempt to pander to me, which I take as insulting?

Also, seriously, that kind of weight would totally snap a waist that thin.

 

[IndigoHawk]

Bob, I like you a lot, and I always watch all your videos, but you are wrong here.

You claim that you are a feminist who supports everything that feminism stands for. Yet, in your next breath, you claim that you find absolutely nothing wrong with the Sorceress (or any of the other female characters that are portrayed in this game), saying that you find her "pretty".

Sorry Bob, but what the Sorceress is, and the other female characters in this game are, is objectification of women. There is no other word for it. It is painting unrealistic views about what women should be. NO WOMAN looks like this, and it is wrong for us to think that this is what they should be.

If you truly claim to be a feminist, you would be shouting from the rooftops that this needs to change, not saying "oh but I'm a pig and I like this."

I'll start. How about having female characters with realistic fucking breast sizes? Is that so much to ask? Why do they need to be so huge that they look like they are their own body, and move independent of the rest of the character?

Riot Games changed Sejuani because they realized no warrior would be dressed the way she was in the middle of winter. Her original character design had her basically wearing a bikini in a freaking snow storm. Now, she actually looks like a warrior. Yes, she is still a beautiful woman to look at, but she is not just eye candy anymore.

THAT is what we need. You can have beautiful female characters without making them into sex objects or eye candy.

This argument is one of the reasons that feminism doesn't understanding gaming and fantasy. Supporting equal rights, dignity, and opportunity for all people does not mean you have to stop enjoying your fantasies. Feminism needs to figure out how to become more realistic and let people like things. Deriding what people like as childish and shaming people for not being "progressive" makes feminism looks like it's becoming a morality movement that's going to start handing out scarlet letters.

There is room in the world for people to enjoy (or not) the Sorceress, the original Sejuani, the new Sejuani, and many others. People can separate what they like in fantasy with how they treat people in reality. This game is not telling people what they should look like. It's giving a niche audience something they enjoy. If someone is confused about whether this type of exaggerated art is how they should look, then they need to remember the difference between fantasy and reality. Games, like other media and art, depict a lot of things that shouldn't and can't exist in the real world. No one should be confused about this.

It's good for feminism to argue for more diverse and feminist characters, but it's wrong to enforce feminist morality on people's fantasies and try to censor what is created and enjoyed.

 

[Evil Smurf]

This is why I love you Bob, agreements all round. I was raised by my mum, little sister and nan but gawd damn if I just don't like me a busty red head.

Then I think you'll like Faye Reagan, just a hunch.

Anyway, I don't really mind if a game has overly sexualised characters, but if it is overboard then I can't play for the awkward: See Lollipop Chainsaw massacre.

 

[Lee Oyd]

It doesn't NEED to change, you just want it to.

If you want to be able to enjoy playing games with normal people, it does. If you enjoy character design that isn't absolute shit, it also does.

 

[JoshuaMadoc]

Can I just simply say? I'm sick of arguing about this topic.

Moreso when even MovieBob says there's "no easy answer". That pretty much amounts to "This is a war where no one will ever win, everyone's just going to lose."

So the next time I read this article or get into this kind of debate, I will crack skulls if it means I'll be free from the skirmishes between 2 parties with increasingly less of a case for me to support wholeheartedly. Just escape, run into a cave, and care only about how I handle fantasy and how I handle my diversity with women, and hope no one has the sheer balls to question me, despite them having called me out for questioning both sides and questioning fantasy as a crutch for poor writing and lack of variety.

Mankind never ceases to give me a reason to be a misanthrope.

 

[Uhura]

Moreso when even MovieBob says there's "no easy answer". That pretty much amounts to "This is a war where no one will ever win, everyone's just going to lose."

Not really. I think Bob is precisely pointing out that this shouldn't be perceived as a "war" and that people should be more considerate of others and strive for a calm discourse about these issues.

 

[JoshuaMadoc]

Moreso when even MovieBob says there's "no easy answer". That pretty much amounts to "This is a war where no one will ever win, everyone's just going to lose."

Not really. I think Bob is precisely pointing out that this shouldn't be perceived as a "war" and that people should be more considerate of others and strive for a calm discourse about these issues.

Except it's clear that there's more people who don't realize or refuse to realize that it's not a war (of copout statements), and a lot of the times, they still kill each other just so they can feel better about themselves when they've managed to be on top of their opponents. I'm tired of the smell of entrails coming out of them with each bloody debate.

Fuck them, both sides of the debate. I'll make my own comically busty women and make them actual compelling characters with story arcs, and god forbid my tiny size 9 boots don't dig into their teeth if they have a problem with that, which I am convinced they all would.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

Huh, another thing to add to the long list of things Bob and I have in common- while I'm a liberal and a feminist and I think we see FAR too much ridiculous male-targetted nonsense in the gaming community (to say nothing of too much outright mysoginy) I also find the design of the Sorceress as sexy as hell.

 

[maninahat]

It is unclear to me why Dragon's Crown gets to be star of the show in this latest round of internet drama but a game like Starcraft 2, for instance, gets a free pass on their character design. Why is the Sorceress over the line but Kerrigan with her impractical zerg heels and meticulous non-chitin covered ass is somehow ok?

It depends on what websites you read. Rockpapershotgun.com certainly complained about Kerrigan.

I quite like this summary provided by Bob - the issue being that sexualised females are the standard, rather than the niche. Hooters should be fine, being that every restaurant is not a Hooters.

What interests me is why everyone hates Kotaku so much. I find it hard to disagree with anything this guy said, immature insults asides, but even if I didn't, I don't see how that would make Kotaku the worst gamesite ever.

 

[Snowblindblitz]

This reminds me of that Thread about Saga, the comic, where they were debating a particular picture from it, and some people jumped in on that one picture saying "Well, this is garbage, I see why this picture got it banned...blah blah snap judgements based off a single image or trailer"

I looked at all the character designs, and the sorceress looks appropriate in the theme. Now, if all the other characters didn't look ridiculous, then we might be onto something here.