LordNue said:
Baby...BABY...BABY-BABY... BABY BABYBABY BABY IT WAS CRYING JUST FOR ME!!!!
They could have characterized her in many ways. They just didn't have to take her from one extreme to another. Hell we see some glimpses in fusion and zero mission. Even in the Prime games, such as in Echoes when you beat Dark Samus for the second time she moves like she's going to try and stop Dark Samus from falling to her apparent death, and it Corruption when Gandreda or whatever her name is turns into Samus in her death throes, Samus gets a really freaked out look on her face. It gives an impression that though Samus does this, she's aware that she can die and seeing something that looks eerily like herself die troubles her and makes it seem too real, or perhaps I'm reading too much into it. But that's how subtle characterization works, small gestures and movements without shoving exposition that halts the plot and gameplay down the player's throat while they just sit there with their thumbs up their ass waiting for the stupid cutscene to end. Even if they wanted to give her a softer more feminine side they could have pulled it off without turning her into a weak, spineless failure who constantly whined how she couldn't ever do anything however long in the past it was and how the man was always right and who could never actually do anything without some man there to help or guide her along.
While I agree it would've made for a more compelling story for intellectuals, the cutscenes in this game are made for those who haven't followed the serise, are not well versed in subtle analogy (I.E. the average person) or those too young to understand said subtle use of story. Whether or not that's the height of Sakamoto's writing (which I doubt it is, as I doubt he wrote it himself but rather proof-read it) is moot. The game is made to be enjoyed by everyone, so that does mean people who are well versed in the analysis of a story are going to have to excuse some thing.
You're also talking about a large cultural divide here. Japan is not known for their glorious poet loriates. Yes, yes, some great stories have come out of Japan with thought provoking stories, but for the most part (especially in gaming) I think we can agree that everything is very blunt, straight-forward and explained to nauseum to be
very obvious as to what is going on and how the characters feel. More so than Western culture, Eastern culture uses stereotypes within characters and sotry-arcs because they're perfectly fine with the status-quo and security of those forms. Even so, there were moments where I appreciated the explinations, such as the thumbs-down "two-fold geature" that she had. I probably could've figured it out given enough playthroughs, but having that neat little tid-bit handed to me was a nice geasture. Overall, your complaints aren't with the game itself, but rather with the culture it comes from, which unfortunately for you, probably won't change for awhile. That includes its feelings that everyone should accept their art form for what it is and not complain about it being too straight-forward.
sunburst313 said:
Fine, let's ignore characterization through gameplay and assume we knew nothing about Samus the character before now so whatever personality they decided to go with is the real Samus. Samus Aran is officially an emotionally frail girl and not a badass bounty hunter who happens to be female. She is not and never should have been an icon of feminine strength in gaming. The badass we thought we knew was just a phantom created when we filled in the blanks with things that were never actually stated. She's simply another roadblock standing in the way of strong female characterization in the games industry. Is that what you want?
Seriously, are you listening to yourselves? What does it matter if the character we thought we knew was never beaten over our heads? How does that excuse taking an icon of strong, independent women and turning her into a submissive little girl? It's great if they want to turn Samus into a deeper character with more personality than a pistol, but they still made her into a shitty character. If they want to give Samus depth that doesn't suck, I will be behind them 100%. It's great that she's flawed and has emotions other than grim determination. It's not great that those flaws paralyze her and completely drown out any other characteristics she may have. There's really not much else I can say that hasn't already been said at least as eloquently. I will note that I know quite a few female gamers who were rabidly anticipating Other M. Every single one of them was royally pissed off when they finished it. No matter what your perspective on this is, that proves Nintendo did something wrong.
Now this leads to my second point which covers both quotees: Samus Aran as a strong female character.
So most of you are complaining that she's being a over-sensative, insecure person who cries and feels fear in the face of danger. Excuse me, but when did Duke Nukem with boobs become the only acceptable form of a strong female character? In fact, when did Duke Nukem become the pinicle of strong male characters? Don't get me wrong, always bet on the Duke, but I can't help but feel that what you're portraying is a sense that anyone with any sort of "weak" traits to them is a terrible person and shouldn't be represented as a strong character in media.
I don't know about you, but I believe this was one of the points that feminism was trying to abolish, that having feelings and emotions didn't nessesarily make you weak as a person. I understand no one wants Samus to be some snivling little girl that completely relies on everyone else to do everything for her, then bakes a cake when the men have solved her problems. However, is this really what happens? To me and many others, a strong character isn't defined by having absolutely no weakness at all, but rather the ability to overcome weakness in the face of adversity. This is true within both male and female role models. Your argument is that she
never overcomes this adversity of scared, meek feelings within the context of the game, which I have to say isn't even close to the truth.
What is happening here is a classic divide between the narrative and the gameplay. Atypically, this thought process is caused by the control being taken and given to the players. Whenever the control is taken away, obviously it's Samus in control of her own actions and this is what will define her as a character. Conversely, when control is given, it is the player who is in control of the actions and that means characterization is over. Or is it? Because of how narrative is presented, is it not fair to say that the gameplay
is part of the narrative and that every action you make is apart of the portrayal of Samus Aran? If you look at the story as a whole, gameplay and all, we see that Samus deftly deals with a bad situation -the spread of alien species aboard a United Space Alliance (or whatever they're called) space station- with little help from the marines that are also there. The majority of the game she's being ordered by someone who has legal juristiction over the space station within a military chain of command. By the definition that because she's obeying the proper authorities and abiding by the laws that have been put into place, any law abiding citizen, especially those service women within the armed forces branch of your country, are terribly weak minded individuals who are only a set back to the femenist culture and that anarchic activists are the true women of this day and age. Little silly when you think about it, isn't it? Realistically, Samus is acting every bit the professional business woman by accepting the facts of the situation at hand.
On that same level, we get the interactions with Adam that are nearing the climax of the game. Is it just me, or is this a little skewed as well? Consider this: after every cutscene where Samus acts out of the confines of what you would call a "strong female character", do me a favour and pause the game. Then, recite out loud this exact phrase:
"Alright. Things look tough, but I can do this. It's my job and everyone is counting on me. Get it together!" (optional "Samus" or "girl" can be added at the end for dramatic effect)
Does this not make everything seem a little better? On the same account, do you
really need this spelled out for you
everytime Samus goes into "dramatic moment" mode? I understand that this somewhat goes against my early comment of that "Japan is very straight-forward with narrative" but even some things remain the same between our two cultures. The divide between cinematics and gameplay should be a seemless narrative, which means that your actions dictate how Samus develops. If you really believe her to be a snivling coward of a woman in the face of adversity, by all means, run her into a corner and let whatever enemy your facing blast her into a pile of dust. However, I think we can agree that you won't be getting very far in the game that way and that the purpose is to fight your way through the space station to your ultimate goal. So why is this kept seperate from the characterization of who Samus is? Why do we assume she's a cry-baby who needs a man to do everything for her when, throughout the gameplay, you kick ass and take names, all under the presumption that she's sucking up her feelings of doubt and inadequacy to get her job done? Really, complaining about having a straight-forward narrative and then not seeing this is sort of hypocritical.
As for Ridley, I explained my thoughts in an earlier post, so I'm just going to do what I hate the most and quote myself:
HellsingerAngel said:
Why is she so scared of Ridley!? She's killed him, like, a bajillion times!!!
Alright, this is probably the easiest argument out of them all.
Remember when in Super Metroid, the game Other M directly follows, Samus "kills" Ridley? Of course you do, it's one of the times you counted in the "Samus vs. Ridley" tally of why she shouldn't be afraid of him. Now, do you also remember the part where the entire planet blew up and no one saw Ridley escape it!?!? By all accounts, Ridley was still on planet Zebes when it blew up. Now, I understand Samus is pretty cool under preasure, but if I had an arch-nemesis that just survived a brutal beat-down by me, which was followed by a planet exploding on him(!!!!!!!) I'd be seriously considering my life decisions and career goals at that moment, right before I crap out my intestines and cry to anyone near-by to make the bad space dragon monster go away! Yes, there's hyperbole in there, but that's just how rediculously scary that would be! This guy survived an explosion from something that killed Mother Brain, which would probably be that of many, many megatons of blast force, after getting the crap kicked out of him. Hope that puts some perspective on that.
Maybe I'm looking too deeply into things, or trying to find excuses without realising my brain is doing it, but for me, Other M has so far been a great experience. The gameplay is fluent, for the most part, and the story so far has been very good, if a bit more Japanese than I would like it to be. I think people just jumped the gun on crying about their "Ripley" becoming this very scared little girl, when in reality, this is what most people are like when confronted with severe problems all their life. The unfortunate part is that no one can see past the cutscenes of her being fairly emotionally broken and look to where she actually sucks it all up and does her job as she always has: the strong female.
