Ubisoft: Far Cry 4 Is Packed to the Gills With Women

[mecegirl]

There have been many conversations about the all male, all white cast of those books. Perhaps if you regularly visited forums about fantasy novels you would have seen people's reactions to the book, and especially its legacy. Not everyone is happy with the white male protagonist model that permeates the epic fantasy genre.

The movies were altered to give a larger role to Arwen because the movie was so packed with guys. She never saw combat in the books. That scene with saving Frodo at the river was altered for the movies. That was a male elf that we only meet once in the books. She wasn't shown in flash backs and dreams. That necklace that she gave to Aragorn as a symbol of their love or whatever? Never happened in the books. You just meet her at Rivendell, find out that Aragorn loves her, then later they get married. Originally it was just Eowyn that had any prominence as a female fighter. And while Gladriel never saw combat in the books, or movies, she was still played up to be powerful and mysterious. The franchise even made up a female chracter for the Hobbit movies. If there was no problem with the books being the way that it was then I doubt any of those changes would have been made.

But the biggest problem with your LOTR example is that LOTR featured nine white guys that weren't carbon copys of each other. They had differences in height, build, weight, race, personality, and motivation. And that makes a big difference. Because if you are gonna have a sausage fest at least make the characters distinct. It's not like there is anything wrong with having a story all about male characters. It's just that it's overdone so people want something a little different. But a good all male story will still be welcomed because it's good.

Ubisoft didn't design a game about four white guys. They designed a game with one white guy, and chose to make a multiplayer mode where everyone plays a color coded copy of the same guy. There would have been less backlash if the multiplayer at least had four different white guys. Or if they had advertized their game differently(because people wouldn't incorrectly assume that the story has four protagonists like the trailer and disk cover suggest). And there would have been less backlash if they had just explained how their mutiplayer functioned, instead of putting their foot in their mouths by explaining that they wanted a female chracter but couldn't because of a lack of resources. I'm not sure what's worse, the idea that they really did want a female chracter and had to drop it, or that idea that they hadn't planed for one and lied about it to make themselves look like they at least thought about being inclusive. I am gonna give Ubi the benefit of the doubt and assume that they really did want a female chracter. But if that was the case they probably should have avoided talking about how they wanted one in order to avoid looking bad. They should have just played up the features that they did put in the game, like a proper PR department would have.

 

[Olas]

Assassin's Creed Liberation isn't a "current" enough game for you? It was released late in 2012 and was rereleased for PS3, Xbox360, and PC earlier this year. So are you saying that Ubisoft needs to release a game with a female protagonist every year and a half?

You can also play as Aveline in some of the bonus content for Assassin's Creed 4, though I'm sure you'll shrug that off too since it's still too far from center stage.

Current as in Assassin's Creed Unity and Far Cry 4 are the topic. Sorry I expected you to understand that when the topic's name has "Far Cry 4" in it, and Assassin's Creed Unity has been undergoing pretty much the exact same thing, people would be talking about those two games.

So you're complaining about a lack of playable female characters in these 2 specific games? You're drawing yourself into a really small box.

At least when I thought you were talking about these entire series' I saw where you were coming from, but I don't think it's at all reasonable to complain about not having a female playable character in any given Assassin's Creed or Far Cry game viewed in isolation.

And how is that any worse than just flat out choosing to not have female playable characters? Basically they're saying they had some interest in female characters, but it just ended up being to resource consuming to be worth it in the end. If anything that seems like it would be better than if they never had any interest in female characters to begin with. Not that there's really a problem with either of those.

Because choosing to just not have female playable characters, while worth a grievance in its own right, is a bit different than "we really wanted female characters, but we decided to spend all of our resources elsewhere because we didn't care about them." Choosing not to have female characters because your multiplayer works a certain way is better than choosing to have female characters but deciding they're not important enough to put any real effort into them.

I'm still not sure I fully understand, but it sounds like your issue is more with the pettiness of their explanation than with the actual decision not to include female characters to begin with. I don't particularly like the explanation either, but I don't consider bad PR to be a huge concern.

I also think it's a bit unfair to say Ubisoft decided female characters aren't important enough to put ANY real effort into. It seems incredibly unlikely, nor is there any evidence of it. It seems much more probable that they did a cost/benefit analysis and the cost of including a female playable character in the game wasn't worth the needed expended effort to make it work well. Would you have rather they include a last second, half-assed female character who's animations don't line up with the ledges they're climbing?

Making a fully integrated female character model is certainly within Ubisoft's power, but that doesn't mean it takes little to no effort. Lots of people unfairly bring up other games with female playable characters without considering the difference between a game with relatively simple platform of shooter mechanics and one with the more complex climbing/free-running mechanics of Assassins Creed.

So basically your saying that it's okay to leave out female playable characters from the start, but if you start to consider adding them at some point YOU'D BETTER FOLLOW THROUGH!

No, it's okay to leave out female playable characters if your multiplayer mode works in some weird way where having a female avatar is pointless since you always see yourself as Arno, the white guy. If you start to consider adding them, and tell everyone how much you really really wanted them, you should probably fucking follow through. Otherwise it makes you look like you either lied or are incredibly incompetent. I'll take "we decided to go with this weird coop feature no one wanted" over "we decided female avatars weren't worth the effort."

I actually don't see how the weird multiplayer is any better of an excuse, if anything it makes less sense. Unless we're talking about single screen local multiplayer, it shouldn't really be that hard to make other players look different to you, even if they still look like Arno to their respective players. As long as everyone works the same mechanically it should be small beans to swap out skins for each perspective.

So it really is a simple matter of effort on Ubisoft's part.

Of course, this only applies to AC:U, since I don't believe Far Cry 4 has that type of multiplayer and they don't have the excuse of parkour being expensive to animate. Ubisoft has no excuse when it comes to that, and anything they say other than "day-one patch" or "next one (and not some side game on a handheld): female protagonist" can only make it worse.

Yes, but the bulk of your issue seems to be with Ubisoft's explanation for not having female characters, which was limited to the Assassin's Creed series. I don't believe they said all that same stuff about Far Cry 4. As far as Far Cry is concerned they probably did simply decide to make the protagonist a guy without much second thought.

And I can see how, viewing the whole series, it can seem somewhat ridiculous that they've chosen a male protagonist in every installment so far. I can understand people taking issue with that, but it goes back to what I said earlier: they're creating art and entertainment, they aren't beholden to any rules as to what kind of content they should or shouldn't create. Monet nearly exclusively painted pictures of plants in the springtime, should he be seen as flawed for not painting more urban or winter setting? I'm not trying to equate Ubisoft with Monet, or female protagonists with lillypads. All I'm saying is that the choice of subject matter is not as important as how that subject matter is represented. If you want games with female's in playable roles, then ignore Ubisoft and buy games from developers who are willing to fill that niche.

 

[Angelblaze]

I really do love the fact that no ones enlightened half these people.

Note, to those of you saying that everyone got mad specifically because 'no femalezzzz' - you're wrong.

It's the fact that one of the largest game publishers in the world, with one of the "strongest" (best selling, at least) ips in the western world tried to use the excuse 'Female characters cost too much'.

Let's not even bring up the fact that they made an assassin creed with a female character and as far as we were told it made a profit not only that but the only reason most people gave it bad reviews was because the story was shit and they didn't develop the character - instead focusing on the villains and other characters rather then the MC. Which is bullshit. Some reviewers seemed to be head over heels with the protagonist. ( The Review: http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/assassins-creed-iii-liberation-review/1900-6399285/
The wikipedia page : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_III:_Liberation

And I quote:

Spoiler

From wiki : Shaun McInnis, reviewer for GameSpot, gave the game a score of 6.5/10, praising the protagonist as "...a woman born from the romance between a wealthy father and a slave mother, someone who has overcome her uncertain upbringing to find a new life in the Assassin Brotherhood"

Directly from the article:
The greatest casualty of Liberation's muddled storytelling is Aveline herself. She's introduced as an intriguing and strong-willed character, but Aveline's personality is hardly explored beyond that initial introduction. Her recruitment into the Assassin Brotherhood is quickly glossed over, while her gender and mixed ethnicity only occasionally factor into the story. These are interesting traits that you wish the game would explore in more detail, but it's more concerned with a dizzying roster of villains and side characters than spending much time on the heroine at its center.

Really, what part of that doesn't sound like total bullshit?

Seriously, stop trying to hide behind a strawman here.

OT: Congratulations on discovering that the world is made up of 50 percent women, (actually more then that but hey, one step at a time.) Ubisoft. But guess what?

I'm not buying Far Cry 4, or any of its horrific 10 other bonus editions. I'll pirate it if I'm that desperate.

I will however, recommend everyone here who likes playing 'artsy' games, rpgs and female protagonists, to play Child of Light.

It's rather good actually. Plays like final Fantasy 9. I like the music, charming characters - the combat is simplistic and easy but can also be played 2 player and you can increase the difficulty. you can also let one of you siblings or something play with you and it really is a good game.

Ubisoft, shitty PR, amazing art department, evil accountants.

 

[Scow2]

It really sounds like "Hey I'm not racist I have a black friend". I mean it's good you have female characters making up the game world as anything other than titillation, but it seems like they are only creating these characters to try and avoid the whole women in games thing, and that's not the point. The idea is to understand why people want better female characters in games and try and make them because of that, not because if they don't we'll complain, it's a step in the right direction but it's nothing to be applauded over.

As someone who lives just outside an African-American dominated community the 'the I'm not racist I have a black friend' is racist" comment bothers me, and is symptomatic of that attitude choosing to prejudge and misinterpret the message in the opposite manner its actually presented. And, I find it's mostly spouted by white people who don't have black friends (And an occassional black person who lacks white friends), and thus have no fucking clue what is actually meant when someone indicates they have extensive positive life and social experience with someone from another lifestyle, ethnicity, and/or culture, and instead are working on what they're told to think about race/privilege/culture/etc from lectures, textbooks, and angry forum/tumblr rants.

As for the actual point of your post - They're not 'trying to avoid' the whole Women in Games thing - it's too late for that because that bus is trying to run them over (Along with every other developer with a name).

That's interesting, but are these women well fleshed out and developed characters or are they shallow stock characters that you threw in to meet some sort of quota? 'Cause I got the funny feeling that it's the latter.

The rebel leader and antagonists are just as fleshed out and developed as the males. The female grunts on both sides are just as faceless, blank, and interchangeable as the males.

????????????????????
that just seems super condescending... 'they're everywhere just like life' way to make us sound like an infestation.

In any case, Ubi could make a video game completely devoid of men and I still wouldn't buy it. fuck 'em.

No, this is you being narrow-minded and prejudiced. It's a confirmation that the developers have gone out of their way to ensure the game has good numeric gender representation in its cast with nearly-equal male and female representation (Half the antagonists are female, half are male. Half the Non-playable protagonists are female, half are male. They just went with a male protagonist probably because they're writing what they know - You need more females/non-whites in the development process to get good female/non-white characters), which isn't a given in games - it's much simpler to just assign a single body type and possibly handful of faces (Maybe with a tool to randomize some features) to generate faceless mooks/redshirts and some significant characters, all of one gender to simplify the design process (Usually males, because most developers find them easier to make and animate, being male themselves)

 

[Olas]

There have been many conversations about the all male, all white cast of those books. Perhaps if you regularly visited forums about fantasy novels you would have seen people's reactions to the book, and especially its legacy. Not everyone is happy with the white male protagonist model that permeates the epic fantasy genre.

I know that it's been discussed, I've just never seen it brought up as a major controversy the way ACU's casting has been. Considering how much worse Tolkein's male/female ratio is I would consider it a bigger issue than what people are pointing fingers at ACU for.

The movies were altered to give a larger role to Arwen because the movie was so packed with guys. She never saw combat in the books. That scene with saving Frodo at the river was altered for the movies. That was a male elf that we only meet once in the books. She wasn't shown in flash backs and dreams. That necklace that she gave to Aragorn as a symbol of their love or whatever? Never happened in the books. You just meet her at Rivendell, find out that Aragorn loves her, then later they get married. Originally it was just Eowyn that had any prominence as a female fighter. And while Gladriel never saw combat in the books, or movies, she was still played up to be powerful and mysterious. The franchise even made up a female chracter for the Hobbit movies. If there was no problem with the books being the way that it was then I doubt any of those changes would have been made.

I've read the books, I'm aware of the differences, notice how the Joker meme mentioned the books not the movies. I'm aware that PJ tried to expand the role of females for the movies, but even then there's only so much you can do within reason.

But the biggest problem with your LOTR example is that LOTR featured nine white guys that weren't carbon copys of each other. They had differences in height, build, weight, race, personality, and motivation. And that makes a big difference. Because if you are gonna have a sausage fest at least make the characters distinct. It's not like there is anything wrong with having a story all about male characters. It's just that it's overdone so people want something a little different. But a good all male story will still be welcomed because it's good.

I agree completely, there's more to a character than their gender, which is part of the reason I think the criticism of ACU is shortsighted. We don't know anything about these people besides their gender and basic appearance, which doesn't say much if you ask me. The Assassin's Creed series doesn't have the benefit of including elves, dwarves, and wizards because it's based on a real historical setting. The climbing and freerunning mechanics and animations would also make it hard to include characters of various different heights and builds, which is their stated reason for not having females. The fact that they're all Assassins even gives them a reason to all be dressed the same.[footnote]Yes, these are all a bunch of dumb, self imposed rules by Ubisoft, but Ubisoft's insistence on these things is still a better excuse than simply not wanting to have any female playable characters at all[/footnote] If the game comes out and we find out that the characters are all just the same bland stereotypical stock characters that Ubisoft has had in some of their games then that will at least be a valid thing to differentiate the two stories, but we don't know that yet.

Ubisoft didn't design a game about four white guys. They designed a game with one white guy, and chose to make a multiplayer mode where everyone plays a color coded copy of the same guy. There would have been less backlash if the multiplayer at least had four different white guys. Or if they had advertized their game differently(because people wouldn't incorrectly assume that the story has four protagonists like the trailer and disk cover suggest). And there would have been less backlash if they had just explained how their mutiplayer functioned, instead of putting their foot in their mouths by explaining that they wanted a female chracter but couldn't because of a lack of resources. I'm not sure what's worse, the idea that they really did want a female chracter and had to drop it, or that idea that they hadn't planed for one and lied about it to make themselves look like they at least thought about being inclusive.

I'm pretty sure the second one is considerably worse. If they really did want a female character and had to drop it then at least it shows some willingness on their part. I'm sure Ubisoft has planned to add lots of things to games that inevitably got dropped due to time and budget constraints, that's what happens when you lock yourself into a retarded yearly release cycle.

 

[Xman490]

There were plenty of women in Far Cry 3 as well.

But women were only there as the protagonist's friends. It seems that Far Cry 4 is going to have female mercenaries/insurgents to fight along with the male foes. It does sound like compensation for the AC: Unity protagonist choice debacle, but it's still a step in the right direction.

 

[mecegirl]

I know that it's been discussed, I've just never seen it brought up as a major controversy the way ACU's casting has been. Considering how much worse Tolkein's male/female ratio is I would consider it a bigger issue than what people are pointing fingers at ACU for.

Do you know? Or are you expecting a website about video games to not primarily focus on video games? Do you expect to go on a website about books, particularly fantasy novels, and not hear any discussion about the lack of diversity within the genre and instead hear about ubisoft?

People aren't pointing their fingers at ACU instead of LOTR. People on a gaming website are talking about games. I doubt this issue is as big in non gaming spaces.

I've read the books, I'm aware of the differences, notice how the Joker meme mentioned the books not the movies. I'm aware that PJ tried to expand the role of females for the movies, but even then there's only so much you can do within reason.

You keep bringing up the books as if it is a relevant comparison though. Peter Jackson and co. did what they could to bring what female characters there were to prominence, and even added a new one for the Hobbit movies. That alone is proof that people aren't 100% ok with the book's original state. It is also important to remember that you can enjoy something but still criticize it. I would even argue that it is human nature to do so.

I agree completely, there's more to a character than their gender, which is part of the reason I think the criticism of ACU is shortsighted. We don't know anything about these people besides their gender and basic appearance, which doesn't say much if you ask me. The Assassin's Creed series doesn't have the benefit of including elves, dwarves, and wizards because it's based on a real historical setting. The climbing and freerunning mechanics and animations would also make it hard to include characters of various different heights and builds, which is their stated reason for not having females. The fact that they're all Assassins even gives them a reason to all be dressed the same.[footnote]Yes, these are all a bunch of dumb, self imposed rules by Ubisoft, but Ubisoft's insistence on these things is still a better excuse than simply not wanting to have any female playable characters at all[/footnote] If the game comes out and we find out that the characters are all just the same bland stereotypical stock characters that Ubisoft has had in some of their games then that will at least be a valid thing to differentiate the two stories, but we don't know that yet.

And that is where you are mistaken. There is no their. There is only one chracter, Arno Dorian. Each player has the ability to customize Arno for the single player game. And when they enter the multiplayer portions of the game they just use their customized Arno. That has already been explained by the devs.

There probably should be multiple characters within the multiplayer mode. Just like there were multiple characters in the multiplayer mode for previous AC games. And I think that is where the problem lies. People have come to expect a healthy roster of multiplayer characters to choose from. Characters, who while they are human, still look distinct from each other.

These are some of the multiplayer characters from AC: Black Flag.
<youtube=G0Ozmio_JD4>

More characters were added via DLC. You can not expect people to go from that to being okay with four copies.

Just judging by the trailer, it looked like there were four eerily identical men. Four men whose only distinctive characteristics were the color of their cloak and maybe facial hair(we know know that there is only one chracter which is why they looked alike). And under the pretense that they were four individuals,that is not enough. It's not like all grown white men look identical. Some are taller, some are bulkier, some even aren't brunet. (Which might be a shocker to the game industry seeing how much they love brown haired men.) And beyond that, yes, one could be a women. Even someone from Hati (black or biracial) would fit with the time period. White women more so, but I'm sure you've seen all the history because of the discussions on this board. So if the four men were supposed to be individual characters, then it makes it look even worse that they didn't include some diversity because they all have the same character model. It would have been as easy as making one a woman in order to make the team look like a bunch of individuals. But at the very least a major publisher and developer could eek out the time to make four distinct men.

I'm pretty sure the second one is considerably worse. If they really did want a female character and had to drop it then at least it shows some willingness on their part. I'm sure Ubisoft has planned to add lots of things to games that inevitably got dropped due to time and budget constraints, that's what happens when you lock yourself into a retarded yearly release cycle.

They can pick and choose their priorities as they see fit. It just isn't a good look to drop a female chracter from the to do list when publishers have been pretty public about their bias against them.

 

[Artaneius]

Thank you "certain group of people", you ruined another entertainment industry. You couldn't just let people have one not being so worried about people's feelings and sex. You had to make sure all bowed down to make everything "equal". God forbid something not changing their views to be "enlightened".

This is so ridiculous and honestly shows how dumb people have become to enforce others to be politically correct. I play video games to escape reality, not to educate myself about it.

 

[Ickorus]

What do you people expect? That you can sit there kicking up a shitstorm and calling Ubisoft sexists without them trying to refute that?

Jeez, you're like kids having a temper tantrum, even when given what you want you throw it on the floor and keep on screaming.

And people wonder why I don't consider myself a feminist.

 

[Longing]

????????????????????
that just seems super condescending... 'they're everywhere just like life' way to make us sound like an infestation.

In any case, Ubi could make a video game completely devoid of men and I still wouldn't buy it. fuck 'em.

No, this is you being narrow-minded and prejudiced. It's a confirmation that the developers have gone out of their way to ensure the game has good numeric gender representation in its cast with nearly-equal male and female representation (Half the antagonists are female, half are male. Half the Non-playable protagonists are female, half are male. They just went with a male protagonist probably because they're writing what they know - You need more females/non-whites in the development process to get good female/non-white characters), which isn't a given in games - it's much simpler to just assign a single body type and possibly handful of faces (Maybe with a tool to randomize some features) to generate faceless mooks/redshirts and some significant characters, all of one gender to simplify the design process (Usually males, because most developers find them easier to make and animate, being male themselves)

we haven't even seen those women. they could be cardboard cutouts with one dialogue line each. i do not trust ubisoft. until they manage to make good games with interesting stories, that will continue to be my opinion.

 

[Lilani]

Thank you "certain group of people", you ruined another entertainment industry. You couldn't just let people have one not being so worried about people's feelings and sex. You had to make sure all bowed down to make everything "equal". God forbid something not changing their views to be "enlightened".

This is so ridiculous and honestly shows how dumb people have become to enforce others to be politically correct. I play video games to escape reality, not to educate myself about it.

Are you saying the more "enlightened" take is to just ignore the bizarre and baseless lack of females in these fictional worlds?

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

But women were only there as the protagonist's friends. It seems that Far Cry 4 is going to have female mercenaries/insurgents to fight along with the male foes. It does sound like compensation for the AC: Unity protagonist choice debacle, but it's still a step in the right direction.

Err, there were plenty of women in the Pacific Islander village that had nothing to do with the protagonist whatsoever, just living their own lives and minding their business. You can sometimes hear their conversations with other Pacific Islanders. Then there's the gun store lady as well. and Vaas' sister. So no, not just the annoying brats that were the protagonists friends.

 

[Warachia]

Just reading through the comments here the opinion seems to be "How DARE they try to be inclusive!" So on the one hand you're terrible because you don't let people play as women, on the other hand you're terrible because you missed the point.

So what exactly do they have to do to make people happy?

 

[EternallyBored]

Just reading through the comments here the opinion seems to be "How DARE they try to be inclusive!" So on the one hand you're terrible because you don't let people play as women, on the other hand you're terrible because you missed the point.

So what exactly do they have to do to make people happy?

Seriously, I've seen a couple people making comments like this, variations of"what do they need to do to make you guys happy?" and "see? there are female characters they are giving you what you want".

I don't understand where this blatant ignorance of the actual discussion comes from, it's like people read the first sentence and just assume they already know what's being said in its entirety.

No, Ubisoft is not giving the people complaining what they want, from the very start with the Unity comments the whole thing has been about protagonists, so Ubisoft coming in and claiming "well there's loads of female NPC's", is a cold comfort at best, and at worst it smacks of an attempt to deflect the conversation away from what was originally being talked about. Especially with the way Ubisoft stated it which some people interpreted as Ubisoft trying to placate the masses with something they didn't ask about, and outside of a few outliers, no one was really talking about.

So what does Ubisoft need to do to make people happy? Well shit, that's about the most obvious thing in the world, they need to make a female protagonist for a big budget game that isn't a spin off or arcade project.

Barring that, if they don't want to do that, their PR department needs to probably just shut up and stop trying to justify themselves in such a poor manner, and stop trying to deflect the issue with something no one was talking about. The actual games weren't causing much of an issue until Ubisoft's comments started the ball rolling, if they would just stop flailing, the more inflammatory people on both sides of the argument probably would have shut up and moved on the next easy target by now.

 

[white_wolf]

See when ubi says for FC4, "We were inches away from having a fem protagonist..." you could've picked instead of half generic male guy but hey we removed her in the 10th hour that upsets people who like the option to pick woman heros first or frankly want more women heros. What ubi did with this move of make some fem bosses doesn't give them brownie points (at best they get a handful of chocolate chips) they said they just couldn't make her work but you can repurpose her frame to make fem bosses? Or you couldn't use their frames to make a fem hero why? No one complains in FO that their fem heroine's body is the same as the npcs.

What they could've done is remove male bosses and have a fem protagonist option, or if having a fem lead + 2 fem bosses is just too many women for their male focus groups to take why not just remove one fem boss use her as the fem hero lead change her clothing (if need be) have the VA redo any lines or sounds that the hero needs (or reuse pain,grunt, and fall sounds the boss already made) and keep the other fem boss, or if they have four styles of rain fall they could've nixed 2 of them to gain the money for her existence to make that inch away a reality but they just pour salt on wounds when they say stupid things like this they just want to rub it in you want something they have no intentions of making happen. Though they probably never even had a fem lead option just said so to get people who actually have been stating for years they've wanted this in games just like this so they can get the exposure.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Id say its quality over quantity. Can have all the woman they want, if they are all 2 dimensional bullet sponges then its not that big a change. But then i have yet to play it or see what characters are in the game.

Though if they made the main character a hermaphrodite it would solve everyones problem. lol

 

[DementedSheep]

Id say its quality over quantity. Can have all the woman they want, if they are all 2 dimensional bullet sponges then its not that big a change. But then i have yet to play it or see what characters are in the game.

Though if they made the main character a hermaphrodite it would solve everyones problem. lol

Well it kinda is being that prevailing attitude in the industry seems to everyone is white and male unless you have a specific reason to use something else (like you wants tits wave about for eye candy or someone to cry and drum up sympathy).

 

[The Lunatic]

Yeah, the way they phrased it wasn't great.

But, assuming the characters aren't poorly written and token-esque. Isn't this a good thing?