SJW Jim Sterling says Link has to be female and that violent video games promote rape culture.

Signa

Noisy Lurker
Legacy
Jul 16, 2008
4,749
6
43
Country
USA
I'm glad this was kinda a joke thread. I'm SUPER sensitive to the SJW agenda, but Jim did a good job expressing himself. I've seen where these ideas go; the threads of logic never end in a positive place. However, Jim did a great job expressing where they could go, or why there was a real problem. There was no made up boogieman to crush, it was just disappointment at where we could have gone instead of where we are now.

I've seen enough from Jim to think that he probably is in the SJW camp stronger than I'd like, but as long as he keeps expressing himself as I've seen, I'm perfectly happy with it. Problematic SJWs are progressive for progressives sake, and ignore end goals to the point of being regressive. Jim is a real progressive, and is pushing for a realistic possibility of progress.

That ended up being word-salad. The short of it is Jim hasn't turned his ideology up to eleven, and is able to express his position in a logical and well-mannered fashion.
 

TheMysteriousGX

Elite Member
Legacy
Sep 16, 2014
8,300
6,798
118
Country
United States
Kibeth41 said:
chrissx2 said:
He has no problem with Link not being a girl. He just finds the explenation why Link can't be a girl quite stupid.
has an explanation ever been given by Nintendo as to why he can't be a girl?

I know a lot of avid Zelda fans see the name of Link as a mantle, but a lot of the more casual fans who don't look deeply into the franchise (e.g. Children) see Link as an established male character.
Some Nintendo folks have given reasons, but they're mainly bullshit on the level of "she breathes through her skin".
 

Spider RedNight

There are holes in my brain
Oct 8, 2011
821
0
0
Kajin said:
I dunno about you guys, but I'd personally enjoy it if Link were a set of fraternal twins. One boy, one girl. They share the Triforce of Courage and go on adventures together. That'd be fun. Maybe if you HAD to pick one character to stick with, you could choose which one to start with. They get to be the hero and the other gets kidnapped or something to get them out of the way.
That's actually a really adorable idea. It could be called "A Link to Each Other" or something equally gushy and sentimental. I mean, there was Four Swords which had four Links at the same time so why can't he be split into a pair of twins?

Also OT: Maybe they're still scared of making Zelda the main player character because the last time she had a day in the sun, that game bombed real hard because it was terrible. So they're gun-shy? I dunno, it's remotely a better reason than "because Link wouldn't get to do anything :("
 

Elvis Starburst

Unprofessional Rant Artist
Legacy
Aug 9, 2011
2,732
719
118
Zacharious-khan said:
IF this is the video that made you think Jim is an SJW you aren't familiar with his back catalog
IF you read the result of the thread and looked closely, you'd see this was a satire. A joke thread that proved people responded to him without reading or listening to what he said or showed. And a lot of people fell for it
 

Lupine

New member
Apr 26, 2014
112
0
0
Captain Marvelous said:
Whatever, the internet will always be the internet. Nothing the ignorant masses say surprise me anymore. I'm less interested in talking about the internet's inability to comprehend what they hear, or in the second video's case their inability to watch the first god damn 30 seconds before they rage, and more interested in the bullshit excuses for why there can't be a female link [It'd "mess with the balance of the Triforce".]. I'd respect them so much more if they just said, "We didn't make Link female because we didn't want to." There. No bullshit. Not saying anything at all would be better than what Aonuma said.

Street Halo said:
As for turning Link into a female, I can't really speak specifically on that with any kind of authority as I'm not a fan of Nintendo's IP's but I don't agree with retconning just for the sake of "muh diversity" when they could just as easily create a new female character and give people a choice to play as a male Link or the new female hero.
Instead of just gender bending Link they could make Zelda a playable character. I think the biggest problem is that they don't want to do it. Which is fine, I guess. They don't have to do it, after all.
Which isn't a problem in and of itself, but then there were the statements that Jim responsed to...the one about Zelda in particular was a condescending bit of utter silliness. That's the problem that some people are going to have. If they don't like the idea, cool for them and their franchise. But don't act like the idea just doesn't compute or as if the very concept of it mystifies you as a writer. That's just being a disingenuous ass. And something that you'd hope a quality writer wouldn't be spouting.

Just say, we don't really have plans for something like that right now and move on. Not a person probably would have questioned it. But the tone they decided to use was bad and that is going to stick in plenty of people's craws.

shrekfan246 said:
JohnnyDelRay said:
I've only played about 2 Zelda games, read a comic on it and otherwise don't know all too much.
For the record, as has been mentioned many times in this and pretty much every thread that discusses Link's gender, Link is generally a new character in each new game. There are exceptions, such as Ocarina of Time to Majora's Mask, and Wind Waker to Spirit Tracks/Phantom Hourglass, but Nintendo's official explanation was that Link is not the same Link from game to game.

EDIT: Also, they've turned Peter Parker into a girl before, too. Technically. [http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Jessica_Drew_(Earth-1610)]
Okay, is it bad that I didn't know about this version of Spider-Woman and I'm a lot more pissed that they decided to make Jessica a clone of bloody Peter Parker than I am at the fact that supposedly she's girl Parker. Because, really I am. Jessica Drew had heck all to do with Spider-Man and even made a point of pointing it out and being annoyed when people asked. And what do the Ultimate writers do...they make her a bloody clone. When her powers aren't even the same as Parker's. LOL

They took a unique character and tried to make her a rip-off character...I...don't...you can't do that...or you shouldn't.
 

Zacharious-khan

New member
Mar 29, 2011
559
0
0
Elvis Starburst said:
IF you read the result of the thread and looked closely, you'd see this was a satire. A joke thread that proved people responded to him without reading or listening to what he said or showed. And a lot of people fell for it
I watch all of his Jimquisitions. These videos are just as bad or worse than usual since he's attempting to fix his normal post hoc justification by presenting the argument first. Doesn't make what he's saying any less stupid, only that the structure is more apealing to the stupid people a single rung above the usual suspects. If you catch my meaning.
 

TilMorrow

Diabolical Party Member
Jul 7, 2010
3,246
0
0
So knowing that the whole point of this thread is to bait people to post angrily because of someone else's exaggerated opinions, didn't Nintendo kind of deal with this issue already by making Linkle? You know literally shoving bits and pieces of link and zelda in a Blender plus Link's Crossbow Training and mixing it up to make someone new? Literally all they have do is make a game with her as the hero and see how much anyone gives two shits.

Edit: I thought about it for five seconds and maybe the reason Nintendo doesn't seem to want to use a female link/linkle in a LoZ game is because they don't want to deal with people crying sexism over the innuendo jokes/statements some characters make towards Link in each of the games. No one bats an eyelid at the Princess Ruto forced marriage proposal but imagine if the genders were reversed jhfc.
 

Imperioratorex Caprae

Henchgoat Emperor
May 15, 2010
5,499
0
0
I swear some people live with a horrible affliction called "head up ass" syndrome. Either there's a huge deficit in understanding satire and being able to disseminate or infer the real talk in-between the ostentatious, over-the-top in-character rambling, or people are just so far up their own rear ends they don't get it.
Underneath the "thank God for me" persona, there's actually a sensible narrative in Jim's work. Its fine if people don't like the character, but he does honestly have salient points in most of his work.
This thread and some of the knee-jerk responses to it have only proved my theory that people don't even bother to read beyond the title or opening sentences of most posts or news articles, which is really freakin' sad. Its not a catch all description of every gaming enthusiast, but it is damn sad to see just how many people take any and every opportunity to ***** while simultaneously showing their lack of intelligence. They do so by demonstrating their impatience to take time to absorb content or even listen to/read it. To react to a title of a video/thread without reading actually completely devalues any response made because one didn't bother to educate oneself in the matter at hand.
Jim can be satirically abrasive, but that is the point. He's a cracked mirror, contrarian character in his videos and sometimes in his writings but still there's a point to what he says, should anyone bother to give it a cursory examination...
Hell he even says straight out that its not about there not being a gender-swapped Link, nor does he require any developer to make games with female protagonists. All it is about is for devs/pubs to stop making stupid, lame ass excuses for not having those things and just be real. He even praises Rockstar for being honest about GTA V's narrative being strictly about 3 male protagonists, without having to attempt to appease the more radical (and wrong) elements demanding a female presence. Ubisoft with AC: Unity didn't have to defend their position and say "its too hard", they could have just said "it's Arno's story" and left it at that. Nintendo didn't have to fumble their way over a rumor of Linkle being a possibility, they could have said "we just wanted to do another Link story" and it would have been fine. It still is, just be up front and honest without poor attempts at socio-political appeasement.
That is it folks.... damn.
 

Elvis Starburst

Unprofessional Rant Artist
Legacy
Aug 9, 2011
2,732
719
118
Zacharious-khan said:
Elvis Starburst said:
IF you read the result of the thread and looked closely, you'd see this was a satire. A joke thread that proved people responded to him without reading or listening to what he said or showed. And a lot of people fell for it
I watch all of his Jimquisitions. These videos are just as bad or worse than usual since he's attempting to fix his normal post hoc justification by presenting the argument first. Doesn't make what he's saying any less stupid, only that the structure is more apealing to the stupid people a single rung above the usual suspects. If you catch my meaning.
You clearly didn't listen to what I said in response to your first post. Or you did and chose to ignore it. I'm not talking 'bout his videos (Which have some perfectly valid points). I'm mentioning your thoughts towards the OP, thinking that he was taking these videos seriously and calling Jim Sterling a SJW. The thread was a joke.

And no, I don't see what you mean. I looked back at these videos. Why is his content "stupid?" Why is what he said stupid? You don't like it cause he "presented the argument first" as you put it... What does that even mean? Of course he's gonna do that first, so he can talk about it and give his fuckin message and dispute the topic at hand! That's what he does! "Watch all of his Jimquizitions" my ass. This is his shtick, it has been for ages. Look at Imperioratorex Caprae's post above me for a great deconstruction on the reaction to this thread and what they thought Jim meant as well, it's quite well worded.

Oh, side note...
I watch all of his Jimquisitions. These videos are just as bad or worse than usual
So, are you one of those people that watches a content creator's video, pretends to hate them, when you yourself like it a lot and just wanna seem cool for not liking someone popular or has popular opinions? Would fall in line with what you said about watching all of his videos. If not, by all means let me know. Clarify for me
 

anthony87

New member
Aug 13, 2009
3,727
0
0
MysticSlayer said:
anthony87 said:
MysticSlayer said:
Whether Link is male or female is decided on the whim of the writers, and it can be changed at the whim of the writers.
And it should be left to the whim of the writers, rather than the people writing articles, making videos and complaining on forums about it.
It's still up to the whim of the writers. People can express their opinions online about wanting a female Link, just as much as someone can say they want Link to remain male. It is still up to the writers.
That's all well and good. My worry is just that if they do eventually cave and make Link a girl because it's apparently oh-so important, will it be because its something they've decided on themselves or because they've been browbeaten into it?

If it's the former? Yay.

It it's the latter? Yuck.
 

MHR

New member
Apr 3, 2010
939
0
0
The simple points are lost on people in yelling at each-other about SJWs.

The fact remains that if Nintendo wanted a female protagonist and change up the formula in new and exciting ways, they would have Zelda be the main character, perhaps as Sheik. They shouldn't be making a silly Linkle character just 'cuz.

I would totes play legend of Zelda with Zelda being legendary. You could even change up the genre's gameplay somewhat. Have Sheik play like a ninja being sneaky and doing some assassin-type stuff. C'mon, the design document writes itself!
 

Pseudonym

Regular Member
Legacy
Feb 26, 2014
802
8
13
Country
Nederland
Well, reading or watching things on the internet is often like eating chips. Eating an individual chip is not supposed to take effort or to take long. Likewise people don't take time or effort for anything when cassually browsing the internet. It's an activity just one step away from watching television in how unengaged you can actually be about it.

Couple that with the fact that the internet is currently very polarized about genderpolitics and anything you say about it will net you some prebaked diatribes about the SJW's or something.
 

Neurotic Void Melody

Bound to escape
Legacy
Jul 15, 2013
4,953
6
13
Well i, for one, appreciate the double irony attempt here. It is probably one of those things you can only do once anyway, and it did get people to read the OP, hopefully making more people aware. I just assumed it was going to be a troll thread from the wording of the title, but then i try and keep away from most despairing corners of forums to avoid the voiced migraines.

Anymoohoo, on to topic, being a long term Zelda appreciation entity, i honestly don't see why Link has to be male, isn't he originally called "Link" because he is the link between player and game? A character that, not only is a different person each game, but also called whatever the player wants to name them? That is a pure blank slate that is only a couple of steps away from a create-your-own-PC in western RPGs anyway. It shouldn't matter to all but those most stubborn and fearful of change. If you gain nothing by changing sex of this blank slate, you lose nothing either. It's only because of Japanese outdated ideals of gender roles that it started that way. The game would feel a little fresher at least. Everything you ever love will die and fade away including yourselves, your pets and your beloved franchises, that's if they don't choose to leave you first, yet the gender of a fictional character that has never been defined is the sacred ideal we should be protecting? I think people need to lighten up with their choice of entertainment, travel, party, love, create, sing and dance, anything but this crazy overprotectiveness of their games. Coming from a Zelda lover, let it go! ;)
 

Necrozius

New member
Jun 21, 2016
61
0
0
Fappy said:
Personally, I'd be happy with a "choose your gender" option at the start of the game. We already choose Link's name at the start of many of the games, so it isn't like anything about male Link is that well-defined to begin with.
I agree. I mean, why not? Each Link storyline happens at different time periods (the main three characters, Link, Zelda and Ganon are basically reincarnations). It would be interesting to see a gender-swapped version of the story.

Although not sure what dude-Zelda would be named. Zeldor? :D
 

JamesStone

If it ain't broken, get to work
Jun 9, 2010
888
0
0
Samtemdo8 said:
Link is male. Case close. Just because he has some effeminate features in his face does not mean he can be morphed into female.

And besides he did not look that androgynous in certain art styles of him like Ocarina of Time:



People seems to forget that his "girly features" comes with youth because at his oldest Link is often portrayed as 17 years old.

Make him 30 and he will grow a beard and yes Hylians can grow beards:

You do realize Link is not "Link" right? The Legend of Zelda stories say the Hero of Hyrule is reincarnated at every new age, and almost all games use different Links, which is why you can name them differently and they have to relearn everything. There's absolutely no story reason that all Links have the same clothes, more or less, much less gender
 

MysticSlayer

New member
Apr 14, 2013
2,405
0
0
anthony87 said:
That's all well and good. My worry is just that if they do eventually cave and make Link a girl because it's apparently oh-so important, will it be because its something they've decided on themselves or because they've been browbeaten into it?
I'd imagine some will accuse Nintendo of bowing down to pressure because it fits the "SJWs are ruining everything!!!!!" narrative, but I doubt we'll ever know either way.
 

Gizen

New member
Nov 17, 2009
279
0
0
Samtemdo8 said:
The thing is why are we having this discussion with Link of all people? Why Link?

I have never seen anyone asking for a female Mario. You know why because he is now firmly established as a male character.
The difference is that Mario is always the same character, there's just one Mario. Link is (almost) always a different character, there's a dozen different Links. So since Link is different every time to begin with, there's no reason one of them couldn't be female. And lo and behold, Hyrule Warriors even has one that's female (albeit with a dumb name), so it's not impossible. Hell, you could literally have both in the same game and have the player just choose which one they want to play as. And you're right, they could completely reverse everything and have a male Zelda. Female Gandondorf would be the closest one to a problem, because Ganondorf is the same character with a much higher degree of frequency, but even then it could still be done.

And the thing is that all of this is covered in the original Jimquisition video, so the fact that you're trying to argue this subject is proof you didn't actually watch it or read the OP, so grats, you're exactly the type of person this thread was meant to try and bait.