Belated said:
Mister Chippy said:
A few lines in tells me that you didn't actually read my posts, you skimmed them at best. So I'm going to pay you the respect you paid me by only skimming your post, which you should have no problem with. You think I'm hostile? I'll show you hostile:
-No, I didn't call out the "majority" of escapists as free-speech haters. I called out a minority. A large minority, but a minority nonetheless. My exact words were "A lot". "A lot" is not "most", nor is it "all". "A lot" is many. Less than 50%, but more than 10%. And it sure as hell isn't a "majority", so right of the bat you're angry at me for something I factually didn't say.
-Yes, there ARE in fact "a lot" of people on this site who don't understand the importance of free speech and really do, legitimately want to BAN sexy characters. I met them when I defended Dead or Alive, I met them when I defended Dragons Crown, I met them when I defended Senran Kagura. People who legitimately feel that sexuality is inherently bad and so is fantasizing. They're not the majority, but they're a very large minority on here.
-It's bad enough you only skimmed my posts before criticizing me, but now it seems you also skimmed the news post itself. The attitudes in Iran are
not that women should not be present in games. The attitudes of Iran are that the women aren't covered enough. And it is
that attitude that I am comparing with a sizable
minority of escapists. Yes it's true that all women were banned at first, but they're considering a few better-dressed ones.
-I find it ironic that you should come to me with such hostility when you criticize me for my hostility.
That's it. I'm not looking at the rest of your post because if the opening few parts are any evidence, the rest of it is probably made up of arguments against things I never said, and things that are factually inaccurate. I'll re-read your opinion on what I said, when your opinion is based on things I
actually said. But until then, don't insult my intelligence by criticizing arguments I didn't make and missing the overarching point of what it is I'm saying. Plus, it's too goddamn long.
First, I'm going to admit that my accusing you of calling out most of this site was wrong. You're right that you only said a lot. My bad.
Secondly, I'm saddened that you didn't read the rest of my post but judged before you actually read it However I did write quite a bit so I can't actually blame you there. Also, if I come off as hostile to you then I am truely sorry. I tried to be sure that my post wouldn't come off that way, but obviously I goofed somewhere. I do think it would have been helpful if you'd read a little further though.
Thirdly, I'd really appreciate it if you read the rest of this post. I worked hard on it, researched all my facts, re-read everything you've already written here, and tried to consolidate my thoughts from the first post. Also, I'd like to say that I tried even harder to make this non-hostile and not to accuse you of anything you didn't say or don't believe. I merely state my opinion about your attitudes (which may surprise you) and present some counterpoints (which I have thoroughly researched and would be happy to provide more evidence for if you request it OR have specified are just my opinion). If any portions of this seem hostile or like my information isn't valid I'd love it if you could specifially
point them out to me so I can fix/clarify them.
To reiterate what I said in the portion of my post that you admit to not having read, I actually agree with you on the issue of should there be sexiness in games. In fact, I think it would be amazing if every single character in League had at least one skin that was themed purely around making the character sexy. However I also think that League of Legends takes it too far sometimes since the games does feature an incredible amount of sexy material and the sheer quantity seems to mean that sexiness sometimes creeps into places where I feel like it hurts the game. I don't believe that sexiness should demean a character's role (Cait's cop skin, which I also admit is just a skin I don't like aesthetically, does this by dressing her up in an outfit no police officer would ever actually wear but that a stripper might), that sexiness should be the norm to the detriment of other stuff (http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=29924919 the OP here does a very valid analysis of this and while it's a bit old and league
has been improving things have not changed enough to invalidate the points made here), or that either gender should be treated differently in the quest for sexiness (the link above also illustrates that). I also go into a little rant towards the end about the impracticality of a lot of the clothing worn by the female (and some of the male) skins that aren't even supposed to be explicitly sexy, but that's due to my fondness for combat attire more than anything else and you really shouldn't care about that bit.
Now to address the other points you've made in your response here:
- First, I'm sorry I said "most" when you said "a lot of". I've already said that, but I'll say it again.
- Secondly, I think you might be making assumptions about what other people believe or feel. I've lurked on these forums for quite some time and while I've seen people taking plenty of different views on plenty of different subjects, I haven't seen a sizable amount of people who have what I would call 'puritanical' views about sexuality. I've seen people who don't believe that sexuality has a place in games, but I've seen
almost no people who support it being outright banned (yes, I have seen some). The majority of people who I've seen complaining about sex in games (on gaming sites) complain more about how women are portrayed than the actual existence of sex/sexiness themselves, and I think often they make valid points. Most of the time when a topic about censorship comes up the overwhelming opinion seems to be "well that sucks!" even among the people who might disagree with the content in the games in the first place. That said, this is just what I've seen and may not be representative of what people actually believe. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.
- I feel this one is unjustified. I read the entirety of the article posted here, and I've read basically everything I could find from places like the LoL forums, Reddit, Kotaku, and even the original translated announcement and rules about the bans. Also, I think we should both admit that neither of us actually knows what is going through the heads of the Iranian government at this moment. If we did we'd probably be working for the CIA instead of arguing about banned characters in a video game online. My logic for stating that the ban list was due to the Iranian government not wanted women in the game comes from the fact that the original ban list included Kayle, who is dressed more sensibly than a majority of the men in this game (although her pauldrons are a bit oversized) and a goddamned pheonix. The rumors of the new character list does seem like the work of people managing to convince them only to ban the scantily clad characters, but even then I don't think it's appropriate to link the attitudes over in Iran to the ones here. Many escapists who disagree with games such as the ones you list do so because they feel like those games seriously disrespect women. That is NOT the attitude in Iran. The Iranian government really does have a puritanical view of sexuality, while the anger towards games like Dragon's Crown here is motivated by a lot of things, but I think primarily a dislike of the objectification of women (something that the Iranian government has no problems with). Therefor I think it's not really accurate to accuse the escapist forums of being hypocrites here. And, to insert a little quibble of my own in here, you did open up your first post by addressing the Escapist forums generally
Belated said:
What's the matter, Escapists?
which means that people are probably more likely to dismiss any parts later on in your post where you specify that you didn't actually mean everyone here and only a small portion.
- Once again I'd like to apologize that you found my tone hostile. I really didn't intend for it to sound that way and I consider it a failure that that was how it came out to you.
