On Being Deliberately Offensive

[Azure23]

I think people were mad at Game of Thrones, not because they really liked the character and didn't want them to be raped, but because they felt the rape was a tasteless, unimaginative and inappropriate plot device that didn't fit.

Actually, it fitted extremely well.

A passive character whose most defining characteristic is being silent while she is dragged around and abused, marries an aggressive character whose most defining characteristic is being sadistic and evil to the point of being close to a mustache twisting villain. Under the circumstances, I would say abuse and rape are implicitly obvious. Given how both the books and the show depicts violence and sexual content, that scene was shot almost tame.

People hated it because it was not in the original content. George R.R. Martin writing uncomfortable material == Groundbreaking genius; Benioff & Weiss writing uncomfortable material == flamewar material.

It probably has something to do with the fact that Martin is a good writer who writes his uncomfortable material a certain way, he uses implication and subtlety, and never writes merely to shock. Benioff and Weiss however? Well they wrote a character who literally drinks wine out of a skull and screams "fuck em til' they're dead!" It's not a good comparison to make because while on the surface similar material is shared between the two stories, they are presented vastly differently. When people are complaining that "it didn't fit" they mean it didn't fit the characters as laid out in the books, which it doesn't. If you think Sansa is passive, I don't really blame you, the show has failed to properly utilize her for seasons, if you think Petyr Baelish wouldn't know exactly who Ramsay Bolton was and what he was like, I don't blame you, the show has hand waved larger logic holes before. It's just a sloppily designed show. They didn't introduce a character for this plot line and they wanted to to it because they really liked it (the creepy bastards) so they made it happen to Sansa instead. What's annoying is she's got her own thing going on in the books, do we not get to see that now? And Littlefinger had his own thing going on, and he needed Sansa for it, do we not get to see that either? It was a dumb choice from a storytelling perspective and people are pissed off because rape is like one of three things in Benioff and Weiss' literary toolbox. The last two seasons have been full of dumb choices, this one isn't so different.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

The series has shown that ruthless actions have consequences. Most agents who have committed some atrocity face repercussions. Think: Jaime losing his hand, Joffrey being poisoned at his wedding, Tywin losing his legacy and dignity, Cersei being pubicly humiliated (boy lots of Lannisters in here), Black Watch traitors, Stannis' defeat, Arya's whole goddam character arch. Without the tragedy those moments wouldn't have the impact they do.

Yeah but if I wanted to see Ser Ramsay "Satan" Bolton, Fuhrer of the North get killed because the plot finally deciding to drop his plot armor after eating a million babies, I'd watch pretty much any other fantasy series with a binary morale spectrum. GoT normally was a bit more nuanced in this with villains who failed logically either due to their incompetence (i.e. Joffery) or because they made a critical mistake (i.e. Tywin) or both (i.e. Cersei). A lot of the Season 5 material altered characters and contrived scenarios to get what the previous seasons did naturally. and stuff like Sansa's rape or pretty much the whole Stannis arc is the result.

 

[maninahat]

the view that rape in a story should carry a lot more weight. That rape should play a more central role to the story, and thus be granted a reasonable degree of gravitas.

Also, such a claim is talking out both sides of the mouth. Rape is central to the story, and the world. It happens constantly, both on screen and even more implied offscreen. It's a horrible place, and a horrible time. But by it being a central role, it's going to happen a lot... and thus lose it's gravitas. If it's central and indeed a thing in the world, I'm afraid there is no way to avoid diminishing returns.

Rape is not central to the story. Game of Thrones is a series about a bunch of royal families violently competing for control, set in a world with sword chairs and dragons. The World is most certainly one of hardship, grit, ruthlessness and violence. None of that actually demands rape be an included feature however, any more than the Dark Knight movies are obligated to have a rape scene because, hey, Gotham is a shitty place. I just finished reading China Melville's Perdido Street Station: it's a fantasy setting crammed with incredible (and often surreal) violence, grimness and inhumanity. But I didn't feel weirded out when the book lacked a rape scene, because I didn't need one to feel the tone or engage with the story.

It is ultimately up to the writers as to whether they want to include rape in their story, but we can still criticize them for choosing to do so, if that rape feels gratuitous, out of place, poorly inserted, or badly handled. Just saying "it's a medieval setting, rape happened in medieval times" is not an actual justification.

Wanting it to be tasteful is a direct appeal to emotions. How it is presented, if we find it palatable, how does it make us feel about both parties involved. So I'll ask again, what is a "tasteful" rape? The act itself. In any context it is horrible. With proper build up or no.

Just to be clear, we aren't discussing tasteful rape, we are discussing the tasteful presentation of rape. As in, whether a writer can make a measured and respectful approach to rape in their writing. I think most of the Mary Sue staff writers would take issue with the way in which The Colour Purple or Tess of the D'urbervilles handles rape. The rape is still an abhorrent thing in any story, but is it being trivialized or poorly presented in that story?

 

[DarkSoldier84]

Great article, but I disagree that Hatred was under no threat. The game got an undeserved AO rating for having violence milder than MKX or even the Tomb Raider reboot, which features similar (and often more brutal) executions with firearms, with the ESRB pretty much admitting to political pandering under the excuse of "taking context into account". Besides, the game getting put back on Steam was the result of a not trivial campaign complaining to Valve about its removal, don't doubt for one second that without the backlash Hatred would have remained banned.

Mortal Kombat and DOOM's violence is deliberately cartoonish and over the top, which takes away from the impact. That makes it rather hard to compare them to other media that contains violence against human beings.

I really don't see what was supposed to be so offensive about Hatred. Or better yet, what made Hatred more offensive than half the games out there.
Yeah, you kill innocent people. But you do that in every GTA, every Saints Row game. Hell, one could make the argument that you kill innocent people in Bioshock Infinite, Rage, all the Fallouts.
It doesn't seem to be a unique selling point.

Killing innocent people isn't the point in those games and even SR and GTA punish you for it by unleashing the police when you harm them. In Hatred, the deliberate murder of innocents is the entire point of the game. As far as I know, there is no narrative in which the protagonist participates other than "I hate everyone so I'm going to kill everyone." Police are just more targets; there's no incentive to flee.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

Yeah but if I wanted to see Ser Ramsay "Satan" Bolton, Fuhrer of the North get killed because the plot finally deciding to drop his plot armor after eating a million babies, I'd watch pretty much any other fantasy series with a binary morale spectrum. GoT normally was a bit more nuanced in this with villains who failed logically either due to their incompetence (i.e. Joffery) or because they made a critical mistake (i.e. Tywin) or both (i.e. Cersei). A lot of the Season 5 material altered characters and contrived scenarios to get what the previous seasons did naturally. and stuff like Sansa's rape or pretty much the whole Stannis arc is the result.

This. All of this. While the show in this season indeed got around to many of the same plot-points as AFoC and ADwD, it arrived at them for contrived and stupid reasons, where the book plot flowed more organically. Not to say that ADwD wasn't slow as hell at some parts, but everything that happened felt like it was the natural consequences of the characters' actions.

 

[Ishal]

It is ultimately up to the writers as to whether they want to include rape in their story, but we can still criticize them for choosing to do so, if that rape feels gratuitous, out of place, poorly inserted, or badly handled. Just saying "it's a medieval setting, rape happened in medieval times" is not an actual justification.

Yes it is. It is a justification. Just not one you are comfortable with. In which case many will simply say, "Too bad?"

And you can still be criticized for your criticism, if we're even going to grant it acknowledgement as such.

If you don't like rape scenes and such, and feel like they can be removed or not included. Fine. But when they are included, and their inclusion into a setting is exactly that, then it's fine. Treating it as something that needs to be tip toed around and done skillfully, and with care is fine. But the more you push in that direction, the more people are going to buck against it, and you'll get things like Hatred.

Rape scenes don't have to be tasteful. As said before, not all art needs to be designed to pander to such delicate sensibilities. In fact, even some of it willingly invites such criticism. It is blatant bait, that so many so willingly fall for.

 

[Fox12]

you know maybe people being offended by something is not the worst thing ever? maybe it actually opens up discussion as to [I/]why[/I] some people find something offensive?

like with the Game of Thrones debacle. There are issues with using rape as a dramatic device, issues that have roots in all kinds of things in our society, media being a by product of said society...

you'll notice a lot of criticism in regards to GOT is the fact that it feels gratuitous compared to the books, not that staying true to the source material is the only measure of what should/shouldn't be but many write it off as the compelling of overly sensitive PC police

hell if I'm being a little harsher here I'd almost get the impression that those who cry "censorship" and "PC police" want to do the exact same thing to people who take issue...to silence them

but I don't, I want to know WHY people find said thing offensive and decide for myself where I stand

perhaps I'm just biased but Yahtzee tends to have that smug "middle everything" approach where you can appeal to peoples liberalism by dismissing the whiners

I despise Hatred for what it represents. It's the tired and predictable come-back against the anti-fun Nazis that want ALL games banned.

who are thease Anti-fun Nazis? do they meet up? is there a branch in my country?

I largely agree. I'm against censorship and banning material as well, but most people aren't calling for that. What's so wrong with criticism, that its now being depicted as censorship? Criticism is a healthy part of our society, and of intellectual discourse. If a story is edgy, but is also lacking any merit, then maybe that piece of work should be criticized. That's how we come to better understand art, and one another.

Hand waving criticism as politically correct whining is... Silly. There's a lot to criticize in GoT besides the cheap shock value (which may be worthy of criticism itself). This article missed that entirely. I'm a little disapointed in Yahtzee.

 

[Callate]

The critics defend the arts too. It was Siskel and Ebert who turned around and said "you no what, we should stop treating cartoons as a thing just for kids" (They were talking about a Batman cartoon). The critics rescued the likes of Waiting for Godot, when at the time of release, half the audience walked out on the opening night of the play. For every person who calls hip hop a blight on youth culture, you've got a person defending Pink Flamingos.

A good point; when critics are proficient students of the medium they examine, especially when they've had the opportunity to observe it change over time, they can certainly be beneficial to the medium they're examining.

Of course, not every self-described critic is Siskel and Ebert- and they, too, had their blind spots. One of the things I appreciated about Ebert was that he at least tried to be open to conversation when others disagreed.

 

[Vault101]

You really seem to have a problem with someone taking the middle ground, don't you?

because given the context I often find it disingenuous, taking the middle ground for the [I/]sake[/I] of taking a middle ground

[quote/]I don't know what you're referring to by "liberalism" here.[/quote]

I'm probably mangling actual political terms but the kind of people whom Yhatzee/other "intellectual" white guys have very strong appeal to

who loooooove have this great big emphasis on freedoms (ie libertarian leanings) and logic and le science and le free speech so long as it doesn't require any thought into things that doesn't conform to their old school biases

 

[Thanatos2k]

The critics defend the arts too. It was Siskel and Ebert who turned around and said "you no what, we should stop treating cartoons as a thing just for kids" (They were talking about a Batman cartoon). The critics rescued the likes of Waiting for Godot, when at the time of release, half the audience walked out on the opening night of the play. For every person who calls hip hop a blight on youth culture, you've got a person defending Pink Flamingos.

Yeah and then Ebert turned around and said "Video games will never be art" so shows what he knew.

the view that rape in a story should carry a lot more weight. That rape should play a more central role to the story, and thus be granted a reasonable degree of gravitas.

Also, such a claim is talking out both sides of the mouth. Rape is central to the story, and the world. It happens constantly, both on screen and even more implied offscreen. It's a horrible place, and a horrible time. But by it being a central role, it's going to happen a lot... and thus lose it's gravitas. If it's central and indeed a thing in the world, I'm afraid there is no way to avoid diminishing returns.

Rape is not central to the story. Game of Thrones is a series about a bunch of royal families violently competing for control, set in a world with sword chairs and dragons. The World is most certainly one of hardship, grit, ruthlessness and violence. None of that actually demands rape be an included feature however, any more than the Dark Knight movies are obligated to have a rape scene because, hey, Gotham is a shitty place. I just finished reading China Melville's Perdido Street Station: it's a fantasy setting crammed with incredible (and often surreal) violence, grimness and inhumanity. But I didn't feel weirded out when the book lacked a rape scene, because I didn't need one to feel the tone or engage with the story.

It is ultimately up to the writers as to whether they want to include rape in their story, but we can still criticize them for choosing to do so, if that rape feels gratuitous, out of place, poorly inserted, or badly handled. Just saying "it's a medieval setting, rape happened in medieval times" is not an actual justification.

So save your criticism for where it actually belongs. You know what rape was out of place, completely tasteless, and nonsensical? When Jaime raped Cersei in a morgue. It wasn't in the books, was totally contrary to the themes of each character at that point in the story, and seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever and did not drive the story at all.

The producers have apologized for botching that scene. They haven't for this one. There's a reason for that.

And yet, we got a smattering of "outrage" for that one, but not nearly as much as when it happened to Sansa. No one was screaming how they were quitting the show there. Is it because Cersei "deserved it" so rape there was ok? Hypocrisy abounds.

 

[Dalrien]

I think people were mad at Game of Thrones, not because they really liked the character and didn't want them to be raped, but because they felt the rape was a tasteless, unimaginative and inappropriate plot device that didn't fit.

Onto the subject at hand - I can't be mad at the likes of Hatred. It is trying so very hard to be edgy and inappropriate, it comes across like the real people it is based on; desperate, sad, and try hard. I don't think Game of Thrones was trying to cause a moral outrage with the show, they just inserted rape because they thought it was suitably dramatic. Hatred tried to go for moral outrage however, much like Postal games do; they want to be bad taste and crass because that's what the idiot, delinquent kid does in class for easy attention.

Should all things art be tasteful, artful and meaningful? In general, can art not sometimes be tasteless, impulsive and senseless, as in life? I understand critiquing, but this sounds more like judging, and in bad form.

No. But rape scenes inserted into tv shows tend to demand a little more diligent writing and taste. A tv show about sword chairs and pet dragons is certainly no exception. Also, of course they are judging Game of Thrones, what's wrong with judging shit?

Tasteful rape doesn't exist In any part of this universe.

 

[maninahat]

So save your criticism for where it actually belongs. You know what rape was out of place, completely tasteless, and nonsensical? When Jaime raped Cersei in a morgue. It wasn't in the books, was totally contrary to the themes of each character at that point in the story, and seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever and did not drive the story at all.

The producers have apologized for botching that scene. They haven't for this one. There's a reason for that.

And yet, we got a smattering of "outrage" for that one, but not nearly as much as when it happened to Sansa. No one was screaming how they were quitting the show there. Is it because Cersei "deserved it" so rape there was ok? Hypocrisy abounds.

I couldn't answer you I'm afraid. I've only read the first book and seen some of the first series, so my knowledge about this issue is largely second hand. Are we saying for certain that no one complained about that other rape? Or that the camel's back should have broke earlier? My camel's back broke about six episodes in, when I just got annoyed by the writers tireless efforts to stick yet more naked women on screen, in case I couldn't sit through a five minute dialogue scene without having some nipples to look at. I certainly don't recall there being that many lesbian sex scenes in the book.

 

[AgedGrunt]

No. But rape scenes inserted into tv shows tend to demand a little more diligent writing and taste. A tv show about sword chairs and pet dragons is certainly no exception. Also, of course they are judging Game of Thrones, what's wrong with judging shit?

It may have already been said, but part of my thought was how rape is a senseless thing in and of itself.

If it was portrayed in some absurd way or if technical production or acting was truly awful, that's one thing, but if we're looking at the creators I personally feel that's crossing a line.

I'm by every measure a hobbyist, not a professional, but in my own fiction I'd like to feel that I'm telling the story, even if at times my characters don't make sense; that's because, between people, we often don't understand each other. An audience should have questions, doubts and sometimes get offended, but not for creative reasons. When that happens, I think that usually has to do with people building up their own images, fantasy and expectations, so disappointment when those aren't met or seem betrayed.

 

[happyninja42]

I think people were mad at Game of Thrones, not because they really liked the character and didn't want them to be raped, but because they felt the rape was a tasteless, unimaginative and inappropriate plot device that didn't fit.

Yeah, pretty much. I'm not one of those who cried for GoT's shutdown, but when I saw the episode I literally started laughing at the scene. The way they chose to focus on some unrelated character's comically stupid facial expressions was just dumb.

I think by this point, most people clearly perceive the double bind there. Focus the camera on the rape, and you're catering to the "male gaze", or showing gratuitous violence against women or some nonsense. Focus the camera on an observer so you can see the rape through a 3rd party's reaction, and now you're not focusing enough on what rape does to a woman, and instead focusing on how a filthy insensitive man feels.

There is really no winning with the sorts of people who want to be offended by everything.

Except the man in question that was being focused on wasn't enjoying it. He was just as much a victim as the girl. He didn't want her to be hurt, but he was so broken that he couldn't bring himself to stop it. And his master knew it, which is why he made him watch. Because he knew it would further hurt and demoralize the gy, while also degrading the woman even more, to be on display. The rapist got off on mind games like that, it's what he lives for. So yes, they didn't focus the camera on her being raped, and instead showed you the pain and misery of someone who was forced to watch something he found horrible. I don't see how you can say that the man in question, that the camera was focused on was "a filthy insensitive man". The scene pretty clearly showed how much he hated what was happening, but he was too afraid to do anything about it.

I think they handled the rape scene just fine. They didn't turn it into a soft core porn scene, but they didn't sugar coat it either. They showed her fear, her revulsion at what was about to happen to her, and you could hear the sounds of her pain and distress. They just focused the camera on someone else, to let his reaction reflect the audiences reaction to the scene. A reaction of loathing and disgust at another terrible thing happening to a character they like.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

One of the reasons I despise Hatred is that it was so cynically, calculatingly designed to create outrage while profiting from it, while simultaneously aiming to upset people for lulz. Congratulations all the dumbshits who bought it solely "to make a point to the EEEEEEEVIL censorship brigade", you got suckered into buying an utterly pedestrian, mediocre, half-baked 3rd-person shooter with a protagonist (the character, let me remind you, who is meant to represent YOU) who is a laughable joke of a loser. I hope you feel proud of yourselves. You got PLAYED, boys, and the developers are laughing all the way to the bank off your counter-self-righteousness.