Why the hate for the heels?

[FirestormNeos]

Hey, what's the explanation for Marios triple-jump? He just can.

The audience can suspend their disbelief with Mario and a third jump because "he's jumpman! if anyone can do it, it's probably him!" That is not the case with Rocket Hovering.

 

[BloderModer]

The audience can suspend their disbelief with Mario and a third jump because "he's jumpman! if anyone can do it, it's probably him!" That is not the case with Rocket Hovering.

I don't even know where to start with this statement.

Everyone can double jump, almost everyone has a highly improbable recovery-move.

Everything in smash is improbable, everyone can turn into giants, turn invisible and survive explosions without any scientific explanation.

Olimar didn't need molecular-transforming stillettos to join smash.

If Zamus upB was just another jump, I wouldn't cry myself to sleep over how Smash went too far shattering my willing suspension of disbelief.

 

[FirestormNeos]

I don't even know where to start with this statement.

Everyone can double jump, almost everyone has a highly improbable recovery-move.

Everything in smash is improbable, everyone can turn into giants, turn invisible and survive explosions without any scientific explanation.

Olimar didn't need molecular-transforming stillettos to join smash.

If Zamus upB was just another jump, I wouldn't cry myself to sleep over how Smash went too far shattering my willing suspension of disbelief.

but that's the same argument used to disprove the idea that "wah, they're too impractical." If the game is being realistic, she can't fight in heels because her feet would hurt, but now how do you explain anyone's recovery? If the game isn't being realistic, she has no reason to wear heels, but no reason no to wear them.

Sakurai needs ZSS to Rocket Hover for her Up-B, end of story. If the game's being realistic, you have a paradox. If it's not, then whether or not she can wear heels is completely subjective. There is no scenario where ZSS absolutely cannot be allowed to wear heels. "The game is realistic in the sense of heels are impractical, but not realistic in a way that prevents her from double- and triple-jumping" sort of makes sense, but no one wants to buy a game that's only realistic when convenient in a way to exclude a design choice.

 

[BloderModer]

but that's the same argument used to disprove the idea that "wah, they're too impractical." If the game is being realistic, she can't fight in heels because her feet would hurt, but now how do you explain anyone's recovery? If the game isn't being realistic, she has no reason to wear heels, but no reason no to wear them.

Sakurai needs ZSS to Rocket Hover for her Up-B, end of story. If the game's being realistic, you have a paradox. If it's not, then whether or not she can wear heels is completely subjective. There is no scenario where ZSS absolutely cannot be allowed to wear heels. "The game is realistic in the sense of heels are impractical, but not realistic in a way that prevents her from double- and triple-jumping" sort of makes sense, but no one wants to buy a game that's only realistic when convenient in a way to exclude a design choice.

I'm not against the heels because they are unrealistic. I'm against the heels because they don't do the character justice. I'd rather see Zamus not have any heels.

Sakurai doesn't need Zero Suit Samus to have a rocket-boost up-b. He have endless options when it comes to designing a characters move sets. I don't get what you're trying to say with the whole "people don't buy games where some design choices are excluded".

 

[CJ Falcon]

I don't think the heels would be that unrealistic if Samus had constantly walked in heels her entire life and grew accustomed to it, but whatever.

 

[Shiliski]

Really the only complaint I see against the heels right here are "They are too feminine for her." Because femininity is a weakness and something to be ashamed of, right?

I guess we should also cut off her boobs and flatten her curves so she'll look more like a boy. Give her some big manly arms, regardless of how unrealistic it is for a woman to have man-muscles (women muscles look different). Realism doesn't matter, so why not? Maybe if we make her the exact model of a man except with different parts (which we must immediately forget that she has, lest the subtle reminder reveal that despite all virtues, talents, and accomplishments she's still nothing more than a wimpy little woman), maybe that would make her seem like a strong female character.

 

[BloderModer]

Really the only complaint I see against the heels right here are "They are too feminine for her." Because femininity is a weakness and something to be ashamed of, right?

I guess we should also cut off her boobs and flatten her curves so she'll look more like a boy. Give her some big manly arms, regardless of how unrealistic it is for a woman to have man-muscles (women muscles look different). Realism doesn't matter, so why not? Maybe if we make her the exact model of a man except with different parts (which we must immediately forget that she has, lest the subtle reminder reveal that despite all virtues, talents, and accomplishments she's still nothing more than a wimpy little woman), maybe that would make her seem like a strong female character.

Odd, I've never seen people complain about Zamus femininity.

 

[TeaTwoTime]

@ Shiliski : I agree with you about their relationship not being as abusive as many people suggest. I never meant to say that I thought their relationship is a bad example of an abusive one or that Adam is a wifebeater, etc. The reason I mentioned it, really, is because of how it further adds to the game's troubling and ongoing attitude towards femininity.

I do have some issues with the fact that her curves were increased in size for Smash 4, but not with the fact that she has curves. Curves and femininity are perfectly okay; it's just that the increase shows their intent to sexualise her, which I can't help but be a little bothered by. Ultimately, though, her design looks really good and I'm content with what we've got.

 

[Shiliski]

@ TeaTwoTime the curve comment wasn't so much directed at you as much as the general idea that feminine = weak and/or shameful. I actually didn't notice the change in her curves, but now that you mention it it's kinda noticable.

Again, I don't really want to defend Other M that much because... yeah. The way it deals with Samus's femininity is pretty bad. It's pretty heavily implied that casual sexism is a good thing and that it's perfectly justifiable. It's also implied that only the "young and naive" Samus was bothered by it while the older and wiser Samus has somehow gotten over it, even going to so far as to lament her previous attitude problem. There's also the fact that younger Samus is the only female in her unit, which sends a pretty clear message that other girls weren't allowed. There's a lot more to it than that, but I don't want to keep ranting.

It's a pretty heavily explored topic, anyways.

 

[FirestormNeos]

I'm not against the heels because they are unrealistic. I'm against the heels because they don't do the character justice. I'd rather see Zamus not have any heels.

Sakurai doesn't need Zero Suit Samus to have a rocket-boost up-b. He have endless options when it comes to designing a characters move sets. I don't get what you're trying to say with the whole "people don't buy games where some design choices are excluded".

I'm going to ask this solely so I can get a clearer picture of what you're saying: would you not be okay with ZSS having a rocket-boost up-b, regardless of how it's explained?

 

[CJ Falcon]

@ Shiliski : I agree with you about their relationship not being as abusive as many people suggest. I never meant to say that I thought their relationship is a bad example of an abusive one or that Adam is a wifebeater, etc. The reason I mentioned it, really, is because of how it further adds to the game's troubling and ongoing attitude towards femininity.

I do have some issues with the fact that her curves were increased in size for Smash 4, but not with the fact that she has curves. Curves and femininity are perfectly okay; it's just that the increase shows their intent to sexualise her, which I can't help but be a little bothered by. Ultimately, though, her design looks really good and I'm content with what we've got.

What? Samus is Adam's wife? Sorry, I never finished Other M because it was horrible.

 

[BloderModer]

I'm going to ask this solely so I can get a clearer picture of what you're saying: would you not be okay with ZSS having a rocket-boost up-b, regardless of how it's explained?

No.

 

[TeaTwoTime]

What? Samus is Adam's wife? Sorry, I never finished Other M because it was horrible.

No - she's not.

 

[CJ Falcon]

No - she's not.

Oh good, because that would be awful.

 

[FirestormNeos]

No.

 

[ph00tbag]

He also makes the point that, if the genders were swapped, this would instead be a horrifyingly terrible femdom story that people would clearly dispise. Weeeeell it's all well and good to claim that, but historically that's not the case. Femdom is actually seen as "pretty hot", and not "horrifyingly abusive" as he claims.

Examples: Rachael Alucard, Bayonetta, Pretty much any dominatrix ever, and the only reason there's even a complaint about Samus's whip and heels is because of the prevalence and general acceptance of the femdom fetish.

Not trying to justify it, but it's right there. I'm looking at it, it's right there. Right there. Don't try to tell me it isn't or pretend to me that this isn't a commonly accepted thing. Should we question it? Maybe we should, maybe we shouldn't, but acting like we would all be up in arms over a creepy femdom fantasy is just... well... no. No we would not be. I can confidently assert this because, historically, aside from a few isolated cases we haven't been complaining at all. Don't try to tell me that Rachael Alucard is somehow a completely different story, because it really isn't. She is comically and outright admittedly as abusive as this video merely speculates Other M's Adam to be. If for some reason you don't see it, go ahead and look up what an "abusive relationship" actually is. There are tons of resources that are all too happy to inform you.

For what it's worth, what I always got out of that bit of Elephant in The Room when the original author poster it was that with the genders swapped, it would be far outside the norm--something considered odd by most. He contrasts this with the observation that Other M's story is downright mainstream, as evidenced by Twilight and Hush, Hush, and moreso now by Fifty Shades of Grey.

And I never really saw Rachael's relationship with Ragna portrayed as positive. It's in keeping with the story's theme that good and evil are not absolutes, nor is there a constant by which they may be measured. Rachael and Ragna are heroes of the story by virtue of their juxtaposition against Yuuki Terumi, whose own actions are justifiable in light of the actions of... those chair people... Basically, moral relativity is a big part of BlazBlue, so Rachael, a hero, is cruel and abusive toward Ragna. That dissonance is intentional.

While I do kinda believe in some points that modern gamer-feminists make, such as the desire for equal or near-equal gender representation (there needs to be some leeway for creativity), I have to point out one thing: It's incredibly hypocritical for feminists to ask for heroines who have roles that are specifically feminine (in order to pull away from the Ms. Man trope), cite motherhood as being such a role that they'd like to see more of, and then suddenly get up in arms when someone actually gives them exactly that. Now, I'll agree that Other M probably was not the best medium through which to explore these themes, and Nintendo doesn't exactly have a history of respectfully handling potentially pro-female games *coughSuperPrincessPeachcough*, but I can't help but feel like this particular point damages the credibility of the person making the point, along with damaging the credibility of people claiming to want more heroine-mothers to begin with. That said, I can't really blame them for that, because again Nintendo isn't exactly stellar when it comes to gender politics.

The way motherhood is handled in Other M is devoid of nuance and is, frankly, misogynistic. It depicts the experience of motherhood as an experience that deprives a woman of her rationality and individuality, rather than even make an attempt to explore how the interests of a mother interact with her nature as a person. Feminists don't want a mother that perpetuates misogynistic stereotypes of motherhood. That's why Other M failed on that front. There's not inconsistency there.

1) If MRAs and Feminists were both after the same thing (gender equality), which is what they claim, then they should be getting along famously. If they don't get along every single time, they should at least be getting along once in a while. They do not. At all. MRAs viciously attack feminists and feminists pretend that MRAs don't really exist.

Because MRAs view the status quo as equality. They view this status quo through the privilege and sexism that all of us are brought up with, and see equality, when what they really see is equilibrium. When Feminists want to see equality, MRAs see them as seeking inequality, because that would disturb their equilibrium. Men's Rights Activism is sexism painted as a cause. That's why MRAs and Feminists don't get along.

• Every time a female heroine gains some recognition, they find ways to tear it down as "not good enough", regardless of whether these heroines have it worse or even better than comparable heroes, which in the end is pretty discouraging to see for a developer trying to develop female characters, thereby undermining the very thing they claim to want. Why try pleasing a fanbase that doesn't want to be pleased?

This I can't, and won't deny. But such criticisms are still valuable, as they remind us of just how far we have to go. There is no way this is a bad thing about feminism.

• No one complains about a guy in the kitchen but a girl in the kitchen is terrible. While I understand the historical context of why that is, Isn't the logic that "It's okay when a guy does it but when a girl does it it's awful" kindof provably and inherently sexist against women?

Well, I think there's confirmation bias at play here. I won't deny that if you just scour tumblr for examples of this kind of broad strokes feminism, you could find it, but that would really be getting away from the majority of feminist literature.

• Let's face it: The only Samus that the fake feminists didn't complain (as much) about was a silent protagonist. Said another way, the only currently acceptable Samus is a Samus who is seen and not heard.

The only time Samus has ever spoken, she has been a mouthpiece for an abusive male character. I hardly see how being opposed to this is inconsistent with wanting equality.

• Even then they still complained about Samus being sexualized only to turn around and say "it's okay for a man to be sexy so it should be okay for a woman to be sexy, too". Well which is it? Is it shameful and demeaning to be sexy or is it not? IMO you can only complain about Samus's heels after Little Mac puts a shirt on and Marth cuts his hair.

Again, it's not inherently wrong for anyone to be sexy. But if they're not also a deep and good character, then you have to ask for what reason are they sexy?

I don't get why Tuxedo Mask is brought up. That whole segment seems internally contradictory to me, and I'm not sure I understand what the point is.

 

[bobadz]

ph00tbag is absolutely correct on all fronts.

 

[Shiliski]

I'm going to respond to these in reverse order, because I was somewhat distracted when I made this post and that's how it ended up.

I don't get why Tuxedo Mask is brought up. That whole segment seems internally contradictory to me, and I'm not sure I understand what the point is.

Let me attempt to explain where I was going with this.

In order to see if a female character is being treated fairly, and not in a way that is sexist, you have to compare them to how a male is treated. If they're both treated the same way, then by definition that's equality. If they're treated differently, then you have to admit that it's an inequality.

The point of the comparison between Tuxedo Mask and Zelda is to illustrate that people tend to typecast female characters as victims, and yet seem almost incapable of seeing a man as a victim, even if both the man and woman go through the exact same things. If you strip away the details of their respective fictional worlds and just look at them on a trope by trope basis, Zelda and Mask are very similar in almost all cases except their gender, even down to the point where they both wear gender-exclusive clothing (Mask wears a Tuxedo, Zelda wears a dress). Most importantly:

Both of them play support roles to the hero/heroine
Both of them get damsel'd
Both of them get mind-controlled into attacking the hero/heroine
Zelda gets sorta-killed when she's turned into a ghost in Spirit Tracks, while Mask gets outright killed in the very start of StarS (when the love interest gets killed, this is called "being put in the fridge" or "getting fridged" for short, which is a reference to super hero comic books that I forget the details for. Basically a super heroine was murdered, cut into pieces, and put into the fridge so that a closely connected super hero could be justified in going on a revenge quest.)

Unlike Zelda (arguable), Mask also gets put into some situations that are actually very sexually abusive, such as Beryl trying to claim him for herself via brainwashing. People like to pretend that all men are pigs and don't really care who they "get with", but actually it really matters to us, too. If it didn't, we wouldn't really have relationships or marriage to begin with, and there would be no such thing as "romance".

Yet, no one really considers Mask to be a victim, but they certainly parade Zelda around as the typical Damsel in Distress. (Which she is... but... why isn't Mask seen this way?)
Also, no one considers Link to be weaker for relying upon Zelda, but there are certainly a vocal number of people who consider Sailor Moon weaker for relying upon Tuxedo Mask.

In both cases, the woman is thought of as the victim, and the man is not thought of as the victim. Not for any logical reason, mind you, but she's the victim because she's assumed to be the victim, and the man is not the victim because he's a REAL MANLY MAN OF MANHOOD.

This kind of sexism exists, but it's more in the eyes of the viewer than the creator of the story, though don't get me wrong: The author is just as likely to be guilty of it as anyone else.

Again, it's not inherently wrong for anyone to be sexy. But if they're not also a deep and good character, then you have to ask for what reason are they sexy?

Fanservice, when taken too far, is undeniably a bad thing. Don't get me wrong. Straight female gamers obviously exist and I imagine they see Samus in a thong in much the same way I'd see Little Mac in a thong (As in: eww, gross, do not want). However, when you start questioning someone's motivations, you start making assumptions about them that aren't necessarily fair. I for one think that Smash is still far away from crossing the line, and that people over-react because they don't really understand the underlying issues. I could ask "why is Samus sexy?", sure, but I could also ask, "Why is Link sexy?" YMMV on that, but I certainly remember my female friends drooling over Link, Sephiroth, Squall, and others, so I can't really pretend that it doesn't happen.

Also: Samus, Peach, Daisy, Rosalina, Palutena are all sexy females because they are (A) Female, (B) Have good hygiene (C) Are in good shape (D) Have likable personalities (ignoring Other M) (E) have nice figures (F) have near-perfectly shaped faces. If you wanted to have less sexy characters, which one of these things would you care to sacrifice? Possibly E, sure, and that's perfectly fair. We might also tweak F a bit, but even with A,B,C and D alone they'd still be considered sexy, and none of those traits are anything that should be discouraged at all.

Also, from the perspective of a male in his late 20s, a female who'd make a good partner and a good mother is attractive in addition to the above. This requires things such as responsibility, maturity, a certain level of capability, and a natural tendency to care about others. Rosalina and Zelda both exhibit all of those traits. Daisy is also athletic which implies that she takes care of herself, so that's another plus. Yet, you can't really say that responsibility and maturity are bad things either, and you certainly wouldn't want to see those qualities taken away.

Then again, that's up to taste, and while I question whether or not Zamus counts as fetishy, there is certainly a point where I'd roll my eyes and go, "Really, Nintendo? Really?".

Back to the point however, if you go by the logic that "women shouldn't be sexy", then you end up in a contradictory lose/lose situation. Even if you want to sacrifice B, C and D, there are actually... uh... "tastes" for those too. Once you drop A, the whole issue becomes irrelevant because she's no longer a she.

It would be nice if we could stop seeing females as something other than eyecandy, but we have to actually stop seeing them that way. It's not Nintendo's job to fix our own latent misogyny that we don't want to admit exists. IMO, what men find sexy is very dependent upon what women are like at the time, so it's almost impossible to have a fictional woman who isn't sexy to someone even if you go well out of your way to make them gross or ugly.

People say "Sex sells" but.. eh... I think the overall rejection of DoA Volleyball whatever it's called is evidence that people actually do have a bit of shame. I for one wouldn't be caught dead with that in my library, and I've never been tempted to play it. There's no doubt that there are lines that should not be crossed, but I'd argue as to where those lines should be drawn.

The only time Samus has ever spoken, she has been a mouthpiece for an abusive male character. I hardly see how being opposed to this is inconsistent with wanting equality.

Adam is hardly abusive. Samus is not an abuse victim. If they were at any point intended to be this, then the story failed so hard and missed the mark so much that the relationship is not recognizable as abusive to someone who actually has seen a lot of abusive relationships.

Abuse victims don't challenge and demand answers from their abusers the way Samus challenges and demands answers from Adam multiple times. If ever they did... if ever the victim became too "uppity" in the eyes of the abuser, then the abuser would be quick to put her back in her place. That's the way it's been for about... I dunno, 40 out of the 40 abusive relationships I've seen in the past? This is especially true where the abuser is in some form of authority over the abusee, since the abuser has the notion of "How dare they defy me? I'll show them...". Adam, on the other hand, not only answers her questions but shows absolutely no irritation at Samus for daring to ask.

There is also the fact that abuse victims don't really want to re-enter an abusive relationship, but Samus more or less pushed her way into being back under Adam's command, which Adam resisted at first (he tried to distance himself by calling Samus an "outsider") and then gave into when he realized that she was necessary. This is pretty much the opposite of how I'd expect an abusive relationship to go. Adam would be all too welcoming to Samus, trying to pull her emotional strings in order to lure her back into a situation where he could freely abuse her. Many abusers often take advantage of the fact that you have a huge emotional involvement in a relationship, and use that to force you into a situation that is clearly unhealthy for you, since you will be reluctant to leave once you have so many attachments. Once the abusee finally escapes the relationship, they tend to feel a huge surge of relief, like they're being allowed to live again.

At least that was my experience, and an experience related by several others (we were all kindof abused by the same general group of people, so...). You can say what you want about anecdotal evidence, but the fact remains that Adam sets off almost zero "red flags", so I can't be alone in saying that their relationship isn't really abusive.

Compare their relationship to the following lists:

http://www.theredflagcampaign.org/index.php/dating-violence/red-flags-for-abusive-relationships/
and
http://www.theredflagcampaign.org/index.php/dating-violence/your-relationship-is-healthy-if/

• Samus obviously trusts Adam, with her life even.
• Samus certainly accepted Adam's opinions, and Adam never discouraged her from sharing hers.
• I can't really say much about "physically safety" but any unsafety is justified by their respective jobs. Samus certainly never cowered before Adam however, so it's unlikely that she feels unsafe.
• Samus doesn't seem to have a lot of friends, but Adam certainly makes no attempt to discourage her from interacting with the Last Metroid.
• "You make important decisions together" Again, iffy. The only real choice Samus makes with Adam is "whether or not she should cooperate with Adam's unit", which Samus clearly takes the initiative on.
• "Your partner understands when you spend time away from him/her". Did Adam ever demand to know where Samus was, or demand to be at her side at all times? Yes, he did have access to her helm cam but that's only because as a leader he needs realtime feedback.
• "You don't feel responsible for protecting your partner's reputation or for covering for his/her mistakes." Samus never had to protect his reputation, but instead tried to find out why his name was on a certain incriminating report.
• "Your partner encourages you to enjoy different activities (like joining the volleyball team or football team, running for student government, or being in a play) and helps you reach your goals." Sadly we don't know if Adam did this or not.
• "Your partner likes you for who you are, not just for what you look like." We don't see this either way, but there's little reason to think that Adam sees her as a sex object.
• "You are not afraid to say what you think and why you think that way. You like to hear how your partner thinks, and don't always have to agree." Samus totally has arguments with Adam, and she has never hesitated to state objections or opinions.
• "You have both a friendship and a physical attraction." Well? They do.
• "You don't have to be with your partner 24/7." Samus did manage herself just fine when she lost contact with Adam, though she was worried.
• "Your partner doesn't force sexual activity or insist that you do something that makes you uncomfortable." Well... we'd never see this in a Nintendo game anyways, but no. This does not happen.

So according to the very resources that are made in an attempt to inform people about abusive relationships, in particular what they look like and how to avoid them, Adam is in no way abusive to Samus. Unless you have a good counter argument to this, I can't really take the abuse claim seriously at all, regardless of what the Elephant in The Room says. I can't say anything about Twilight, 50 shades, or whatever because I haven' read/watched them. In the case of Other M, It's just people being over-reactive about something they have no real understanding of.

I also have my own experience of abusive relationships to go by, both that I've personally been roped into and also ones that I've witnessed others being in, and Other M is nothing like them at all. Their relationship can be described as "war buddies with a side of sexual tension", not some strange abusive control freak thing. The fact that people so boldly claim this makes me think that they're making up excuses to hate Other M, which implies that they hate it for reasons that they don't want to admit to themselves, since they clearly have no idea how abuse really works.

Again, I can't really see this as anything but another case of "The woman is getting typecast as the victim", unless Nintendo was really trying to go for an abusive relationship and then failed. There's so much fail in Other M's plotline that I can't really argue that this isn't the case, but I don't think Nintendo would do that. Team Ninja, maybe. I don't know them as well.

However, more to the point that I skimmed over while making the previous point: As someone who is trying to develop games for a living, I often think about the viability of female main characters. It's obvious that there is a demand for female characters because, hey, look at MMOs! What's the old joke? MMORPG = Many Men Online Role Playing Girls. The concept that people don't "want" female characters is kindof silly, and the numbers clearly show that, and it's just as silly to say that "only girls want to play as girls" as it is to say "only guys want to play as guys". However, when I think of any example of an "unsafe" female role, it's usually a woman who has speaking lines, and when I think of a "safe" example, It's almost always a silent protagonist. This kindof angers me because, even if I don't intend to, if I go the "safe" route I'm essentially propagating the idea that "women are better seen and not heard". This tells me that people still think this way regardless of whether they want to admit it to themselves or not.

Sexism isn't socially acceptable, but it's still widespread. This leads to a lot of people being really sexist while trying to justify themselves as not being sexist.

For example: people saying "We need less girls in (Smash/League of Legends/whatever game) because they're only there for fanservice and hentai" is actually a pretty nasty thing to say.

Well, I think there's confirmation bias at play here. I won't deny that if you just scour tumblr for examples of this kind of broad strokes feminism, you could find it, but that would really be getting away from the majority of feminist literature.

I will freely accept that there are many "informed" feminists who are actually aware of the issues and have thought about them and discussed them very deeply. My compliant however is against the "uninformed" feminists who just want to complain, regardless of whether or not it makes sense to, because such people are confusing the issues and spreading some very bad ideas. There are seemingly as many versions of feminism as there are feminists, so any blanket statement is going to be unfair by default, but there are some very bad trends that I feel need to be addressed. Most of these issues have to do with people not even thinking things through and adopting an oversimplified version of feminism.

This I can't, and won't deny. But such criticisms are still valuable, as they remind us of just how far we have to go. There is no way this is a bad thing about feminism.

Valuable, maybe, but I think the issue is deeper than that. Like I said before, nobody thinks less of a man when he gets captured, killed, or whatever; but when it happens to a woman she's suddenly seen as a useless object no matter what her qualities are. The problem is that men can basically do whatever they want and are completely free to fail so long as they succeed in the end, whereas women have to walk this tightrope where the slightest error is lethal to their reputation. So if a man and a woman mess up in equal fashion, the man is still respected and the woman gets zero respect at all.

It seems to me that a woman character would have to climb a metaphorical mountain just to get the same level of respect that the male character simply starts at, but many writers don't understand this issue. So the writer treats the female the exact same way as a male character is treated and yet fails to produce a respectable female character.

I've started calling this "The Woman's Tightrope". If you've ever seen Ratatouille, you might recall how the token female goes on a rant about how she's the only female there because she's so undeniably good it would be suicide to not accept her. Which leads to the implication that if a female were just as bad at cooking as the male main character (who was canonically really bad and only succeeded by taking advice from a rat), she'd be fired on the spot (assuming she even got hired in the first place). Such a theoretically female bad professional cook would've "fallen off the tightrope", presumably to some kind of doom.

Because MRAs view the status quo as equality. They view this status quo through the privilege and sexism that all of us are brought up with, and see equality, when what they really see is equilibrium. When Feminists want to see equality, MRAs see them as seeking inequality, because that would disturb their equilibrium. Men's Rights Activism is sexism painted as a cause. That's why MRAs and Feminists don't get along.

Like I said before, there are many versions of feminism and any blanket statement is unfair, but I could say the same thing about certain people who (falsely) call themselves "feminists", but are actually just misandrists looking for an excuse to hate men. I'm fully aware that this is not universal or even necessarily common, but like any political issue there's stupid on both sides here.

On the other hand, I can't really defend MRAs that much because the only MRAs I've actually run across do nothing but rant endlessly on how feminists are the Devil, and will happily point out all of the crazy misandrists but completely ignore any real attempt at gender equality. The only attempts at substantial arguments I've heard from the MRA side is "Men shouldn't get ***** either" and "Men shouldn't be treated as expendable" (with the claim that the reason why Men get drafted into the army and Women don't is because Men are seen as expendable).

Yet, despite my disagreements with the MRA crowd, I can't deny there's a bit of a "the grass is greener on the other side of the fence" mentality coming from the feminist crowd when, really, men aren't exactly living perfect lives over here. For example, women being treated exactly the same as men would mean women occasionally getting publically beaten over trivial issues (which does happen, yes, and it's ugly as hell). Granted, that's the kind of "gender equality" that would come from a monkey's paw, and nobody really wants that, so the best choice in this case should be "Men shouldn't get beat up over trivial stuff either."

...which sounds a lot like something that an MRA would say, except that I don't really want to associate myself with them. Pretty much because of exactly the reason you stated: It's misogyny pretending to be a political cause.

The way motherhood is handled in Other M is devoid of nuance and is, frankly, misogynistic. It depicts the experience of motherhood as an experience that deprives a woman of her rationality and individuality, rather than even make an attempt to explore how the interests of a mother interact with her nature as a person. Feminists don't want a mother that perpetuates misogynistic stereotypes of motherhood. That's why Other M failed on that front. There's not inconsistency there.

To a certain extent I agree and to a certain extent I don't. To clarify, I agree with what you yourself said, but there are things said by that video that I feel the need to object to.

To be fair, I'll start with the parts that I do agree with, because despite saying that I agree I haven't gone into a lot of details until now:

The fact that Melissa (reminder: the Mother Brain android clone person) didn't even have a personality until she started raising Metroids says some pretty bad things. It implies that she was completely useless until she had a "child" to care for. In fact, the whole purpose of her existence was to raise those "children", and to look after them and keep them manageable so that the male-dominated team could use them. I'm not making that up, it's literally what the game says. So if we carry this thought to its conclusion, it's saying that a woman's only purpose is to be a mother.

Next we look at Madeline Bergman. She clearly saw Melissa as a daughter, and clearly cared about her, but when it came time for the men to take Melissa away she was powerless to stop them. Nevermind the fact that she was brought onboard to help create an army of bioweapons and an android to control them, going back to the idea that "her only purpose was to create life". This shows another woman in another weakened, helpless role. The only thing she succeeded at was creating Melissa and the bioweapons, and she failed in every other regard.

Also, I'm just going to say this if I hadn't already: Bottle Ship? Baby's Cry? Dear lord could you hit us over the head with that any harder? No one can really deny that the story is about motherhood at this point... except that they go ahead and ignore the concept of motherhood, which they set up as the central theme, until the game is about halfway over. After that, they continue to completely ignore it again until the very end of the game. Very poor story telling. Not going to lie.

One could also make a point about Ridley's role in this. He starts off as a cute little baby that needs to "feed" off of Samus's efforts (thus casting Samus in the role of motherhood), but then he rebels against the mother as a teen and then eventually grows into something that is far out of Samus's control. The child, in this case, usurps the mother and then the mother, in turn, takes on the helpless role of the child, being powerless to stop the now grown son's rage. It's probably the only real attempt at "depth" that the story has, but it's right there and I can't really ignore the implication that Samus's usefulness has completely vanished the moment the child has grown up.

Oh, there's also the fact that once Ridley "leaves the nest" (flees from the battle with Samus) he goes off to find another woman (the Queen Metroid) who then drains him dry until he dies in order to produce more metroids. It symbolically emulates the idea that a man is destroyed (by sacrifice of his life and his resources) by the woman for the sake of the offspring. This in turn implies that a man should want to avoid such a relationship. I don't know how many misogynist jokes you've heard before, but this idea closely resembles: "Women are like condoms, they spend more time in your wallet than on your ****". To be clear, I'm not saying that's funny, just that it's a misogynist attitude that's commonly held.

For the part where I disagree:
I feel the need to respond to something said in the aforementioned video, and not something that you yourself said, where it claims that Other M's Samus is "little more than a walking uterus". Well... regardless of how weak the two MBs were, Samus is still pretty much a strong, capable female character. Even with her obvious fangushing over Adam, she still accomplishes quite a lot by defeating many powerful bosses and, in the end, bringing an end to the entire disaster. If someone is willing to ignore all of that just because Samus was cast symbolically in a motherly role, then well... uh... I don't know what to say to someone who claims that other than, "Wow that's pretty sexist. Of you, I mean."

I'll admit that Other M does take Samus down a few notches on the "competent" scale, but she was already high up enough on that scale to still be considered competent even with the loss. I'll also admit that no one complained about Samus in a motherhood role when it was Super Metroid's treatment of the relation between Samus and the Last Metroid. (I'm not gonna call it "the baby"), so Other M alone is the target of that distaste, possibly due to how bad it is in other areas as well as the sexism detailed above.

For what it's worth, what I always got out of that bit of Elephant in The Room when the original author poster it was that with the genders swapped, it would be far outside the norm--something considered odd by most. He contrasts this with the observation that Other M's story is downright mainstream, as evidenced by Twilight and Hush, Hush, and moreso now by Fifty Shades of Grey.

And I never really saw Rachael's relationship with Ragna portrayed as positive. It's in keeping with the story's theme that good and evil are not absolutes, nor is there a constant by which they may be measured. Rachael and Ragna are heroes of the story by virtue of their juxtaposition against Yuuki Terumi, whose own actions are justifiable in light of the actions of... those chair people... Basically, moral relativity is a big part of BlazBlue, so Rachael, a hero, is cruel and abusive toward Ragna. That dissonance is intentional.

I was talking more about Rachael's relationship with her two "pets", which is outright abusive. However, the fact that it also applies to Ragna just goes back to one of the Red Flags listed earlier: Rachael has multiple "partners".

I agree that Rachael is not painted in a purely positive light. Even Litchi, probably one of the "purest" in spite of the obsession with her chest, is somewhat condemned by the phrase during her stage introduction: "He who pardons the bad injures the good." This is related to the way Litchi always tries to redeem Arakune despite his obvious monsterous villainy and everyone's insistence that he cannot be saved. However, the point I was trying to make is that there is no big outcry over this, not that it is somehow treated as okay.

You could say that this is different because Other M treats Adam and Samus's relationship as okay instead of condemning it... except when you look at it realistically and compare it to resources that people actually use to identify abuse, Adam and Samus's relationship is perfectly healthy.

 

[TeaTwoTime]

@ Shiliski : Your post was a pleasure to read. Thanks for sharing your thoughts; it's great to see a well thought out discussion of a topic that is often remarkably one-sided and full of vitriol. What you've said makes a lot of sense and is great food for thought.

 

[ph00tbag]

Let me attempt to explain where I was going with this.

In order to see if a female character is being treated fairly, and not in a way that is sexist, you have to compare them to how a male is treated. If they're both treated the same way, then by definition that's equality. If they're treated differently, then you have to admit that it's an inequality.

Well, I'll agree that it's problematic that Tuxedo Mask plays a victim role through much of the series. And again, it's valuable to point things like that out. I don't really think I've seen a great many people get so riled up as you suggest when he gets his pristine white gloves dirty and helps out. There's a theme I'm noticing to your posts that this hints at, but I'm going to save it for later.

Fanservice, when taken too far, is undeniably a bad thing. Don't get me wrong. Straight female gamers obviously exist and I imagine they see Samus in a thong in much the same way I'd see Little Mac in a thong (As in: eww, gross, do not want). However, when you start questioning someone's motivations, you start making assumptions about them that aren't necessarily fair. I for one think that Smash is still far away from crossing the line, and that people over-react because they don't really understand the underlying issues. I could ask "why is Samus sexy?", sure, but I could also ask, "Why is Link sexy?" YMMV on that, but I certainly remember my female friends drooling over Link, Sephiroth, Squall, and others, so I can't really pretend that it doesn't happen.

Also: Samus, Peach, Daisy, Rosalina, Palutena are all sexy females because they are (A) Female, (B) Have good hygiene (C) Are in good shape (D) Have likable personalities (ignoring Other M) (E) have nice figures (F) have near-perfectly shaped faces. If you wanted to have less sexy characters, which one of these things would you care to sacrifice? Possibly E, sure, and that's perfectly fair. We might also tweak F a bit, but even with A,B,C and D alone they'd still be considered sexy, and none of those traits are anything that should be discouraged at all.

Also, from the perspective of a male in his late 20s, a female who'd make a good partner and a good mother is attractive in addition to the above. This requires things such as responsibility, maturity, a certain level of capability, and a natural tendency to care about others. Rosalina and Zelda both exhibit all of those traits. Daisy is also athletic which implies that she takes care of herself, so that's another plus. Yet, you can't really say that responsibility and maturity are bad things either, and you certainly wouldn't want to see those qualities taken away.

Then again, that's up to taste, and while I question whether or not Zamus counts as fetishy, there is certainly a point where I'd roll my eyes and go, "Really, Nintendo? Really?".

Back to the point however, if you go by the logic that "women shouldn't be sexy", then you end up in a contradictory lose/lose situation. Even if you want to sacrifice B, C and D, there are actually... uh... "tastes" for those too. Once you drop A, the whole issue becomes irrelevant because she's no longer a she.

It would be nice if we could stop seeing females as something other than eyecandy, but we have to actually stop seeing them that way. It's not Nintendo's job to fix our own latent misogyny that we don't want to admit exists. IMO, what men find sexy is very dependent upon what women are like at the time, so it's almost impossible to have a fictional woman who isn't sexy to someone even if you go well out of your way to make them gross or ugly.

People say "Sex sells" but.. eh... I think the overall rejection of DoA Volleyball whatever it's called is evidence that people actually do have a bit of shame. I for one wouldn't be caught dead with that in my library, and I've never been tempted to play it. There's no doubt that there are lines that should not be crossed, but I'd argue as to where those lines should be drawn.

This seems to be another directionless rant. You start out saying that any kind of sexualization is wrong, then say that such a position is going to wind up contradictory. Which is it? Is it wrong, or is it a natural outgrowth of human nature?

Then again, that's up to taste, and while I question whether or not Zamus counts as fetishy, there is certainly a point where I'd roll my eyes and go, "Really, Nintendo? Really?".

For what it's worth, this is really all I've ever felt about the heels. As I said earlier, my only real response to them is, "why?"

Adam is hardly abusive. Samus is not an abuse victim. If they were at any point intended to be this, then the story failed so hard and missed the mark so much that the relationship is not recognizable as abusive to someone who actually has seen a lot of abusive relationships.

Adam forces Samus to endure unbearable heat until she's about to die, and later in the game shoots her in the back. Don't try to diminish this. What Adam does is ****ed up on a number of levels.

Abuse victims don't challenge and demand answers from their abusers the way Samus challenges and demands answers from Adam multiple times. If ever they did... if ever the victim became too "uppity" in the eyes of the abuser, then the abuser would be quick to put her back in her place. That's the way it's been for about... I dunno, 40 out of the 40 abusive relationships I've seen in the past? This is especially true where the abuser is in some form of authority over the abusee, since the abuser has the notion of "How dare they defy me? I'll show them...". Adam, on the other hand, not only answers her questions but shows absolutely no irritation at Samus for daring to ask.

There is also the fact that abuse victims don't really want to re-enter an abusive relationship, but Samus more or less pushed her way into being back under Adam's command, which Adam resisted at first (he tried to distance himself by calling Samus an "outsider") and then gave into when he realized that she was necessary. This is pretty much the opposite of how I'd expect an abusive relationship to go. Adam would be all too welcoming to Samus, trying to pull her emotional strings in order to lure her back into a situation where he could freely abuse her. Many abusers often take advantage of the fact that you have a huge emotional involvement in a relationship, and use that to force you into a situation that is clearly unhealthy for you, since you will be reluctant to leave once you have so many attachments. Once the abusee finally escapes the relationship, they tend to feel a huge surge of relief, like they're being allowed to live again.

At least that was my experience, and an experience related by several others (we were all kindof abused by the same general group of people, so...). You can say what you want about anecdotal evidence, but the fact remains that Adam sets off almost zero "red flags", so I can't be alone in saying that their relationship isn't really abusive.

Samus and Adam's relationship isn't realistic. It's an ideal presented by the author. It suggests that a relationship where one individual can shoot another in the back, and be met with love and admiration is a beautiful one. Incidentally, though, Samus does feel relieved and alive again once Adam is dead, but because of the author's twisted sense of what is beautiful, Samus attributes this to Adam. The most ****ed up thing about their relationship is not that it's abusive, but that Samus represents some kind of twisted ideal who is happy in that relationship. That it's so unrealistic only makes it more disturbing.

You go into all this detail cherrypicking the red flags that the relationship doesn't raise, and the things that are healthy about it (although many of them are extremely debatable), but ignore the huge ****ing red flag that Adam literally batters Samus on-****ing-screen, unprovoked, when he literally has no reason to do so. He tortures her in the Hell Run, and presumably watches, because he had a feed the entire time. I think the most glaring indicator of abuse should be a pattern of actual ****ing abuse. Maybe I'm crazy. But in the event I'm not, then hell yeah Adam is abusive. And hell yeah it's really screwy and unrealistic that Samus takes it, and likes it. That's what the point of Elephant in the Room is, that the depiction of their relationship is a really horrific fantasy.

You also seem to have developed a sense that the relationship between Adam and Samus is sexual. While I won't deny the validity of your interpretation, I feel the need to remind you that this is not what the relationship is supposed to be. Adam is supposed to be a father figure to Samus. This changes the dynamic a bit. If there is attraction there, then it's even more disturbing.

Again, I can't really see this as anything but another case of "The woman is getting typecast as the victim", unless Nintendo was really trying to go for an abusive relationship and then failed. There's so much fail in Other M's plotline that I can't really argue that this isn't the case, but I don't think Nintendo would do that. Team Ninja, maybe. I don't know them as well.

Well, it's not really a Nintendo thing. It's a Sakamoto thing. He was the writer, director, and producer. He had every license to do what he wanted in this thing. And like Elephant in the Room says, it's likely this relationship wasn't what Sakamoto was going for. But it doesn't preclude the fact that it's what he wound up with, and it's what he kept. And from that, the least damning thing you can surmise about this is that he's so incompetent he didn't see it. I personally find in more likely that he just sees nothing wrong with it, that he thinks he has made something beautiful. And that's really scary.

However, more to the point that I skimmed over while making the previous point: As someone who is trying to develop games for a living, I often think about the viability of female main characters. It's obvious that there is a demand for female characters because, hey, look at MMOs! What's the old joke? MMORPG = Many Men Online Role Playing Girls. The concept that people don't "want" female characters is kindof silly, and the numbers clearly show that, and it's just as silly to say that "only girls want to play as girls" as it is to say "only guys want to play as guys". However, when I think of any example of an "unsafe" female role, it's usually a woman who has speaking lines, and when I think of a "safe" example, It's almost always a silent protagonist. This kindof angers me because, even if I don't intend to, if I go the "safe" route I'm essentially propagating the idea that "women are better seen and not heard". This tells me that people still think this way regardless of whether they want to admit it to themselves or not.

I think you're overthinking it. Silent protagonists in games tend to be perceived as stronger overall, because they allow the player to fill in their own interpretation of the protagonist's mindset. Link and Mario are both silent protagonists in the majority of their games, and no one thinks less of them. Because really, actions speak louder than words. Before, when Samus didn't speak much, there was little dissonance with how awesome she was in the games, because it was easy for the player to fill in the blanks with a consistent character when she did something surprising, like sparing the infant metroid in RoS. The fact that there was such a strongly consistent interpretation of Samus among fans prior to Other M, and the fact that Other M is so glaringly at odds with that interpretation speak, imo, to how powerful a device the silent protagonist is.

For the part where I disagree:
I feel the need to respond to something said in the aforementioned video, and not something that you yourself said, where it claims that Other M's Samus is "little more than a walking uterus". Well... regardless of how weak the two MBs were, Samus is still pretty much a strong, capable female character. Even with her obvious fangushing over Adam, she still accomplishes quite a lot by defeating many powerful bosses and, in the end, bringing an end to the entire disaster. If someone is willing to ignore all of that just because Samus was cast symbolically in a motherly role, then well... uh... I don't know what to say to someone who claims that other than, "Wow that's pretty sexist. Of you, I mean."

This is actually touched on in Elephant in the Room, as well. There's a really wrenching dichotomy in Other M between "gameplay Samus" and "cinematic Samus." One of them is competent and wiley, presumably very intelligent and rational. The other is simply not. Rather than attempt to address the two characterizations as a whole, which is fraught with contradictions and complications, Elephant in the Room only addresses the cinematic version of Samus. If you want to consider the two as whole, and just ignore the fact that it's almost impossible to believe that cinematic Samus does the things gameplay Samus does, that's your business, but it doesn't constitute a valid criticism of the essay, imo.

Valuable, maybe, but I think the issue is deeper than that. Like I said before, nobody thinks less of a man when he gets captured, killed, or whatever; but when it happens to a woman she's suddenly seen as a useless object no matter what her qualities are. The problem is that men can basically do whatever they want and are completely free to fail so long as they succeed in the end, whereas women have to walk this tightrope where the slightest error is lethal to their reputation. So if a man and a woman mess up in equal fashion, the man is still respected and the woman gets zero respect at all.

It seems to me that a woman character would have to climb a metaphorical mountain just to get the same level of respect that the male character simply starts at, but many writers don't understand this issue. So the writer treats the female the exact same way as a male character is treated and yet fails to produce a respectable female character.

I've started calling this "The Woman's Tightrope". If you've ever seen Ratatouille, you might recall how the token female goes on a rant about how she's the only female there because she's so undeniably good it would be suicide to not accept her. Which leads to the implication that if a female were just as bad at cooking as the male main character (who was canonically really bad and only succeeded by taking advice from a rat), she'd be fired on the spot (assuming she even got hired in the first place). Such a theoretically female bad professional cook would've "fallen off the tightrope", presumably to some kind of doom.

It really doesn't go deeper than that. No serious feminist finds a problem with a female lead who fails initially, only succeed later.

I thought you were talking about, like, Frozen, or something. There's debate as to whether the movie is empowering, because on the one end, the main female roles are driven by something other than the men in the movie, and they do, indeed, pass the Bechdel test. However, on the other side of the coin, many female roles from the original story are condensed or removed altogether, or worse, replaced by men. And male roles are actually added that weren't in the original. The nature of this debate serves to illustrate that as a society we're still at a point where Frozen can be seen as progressive, but that it really could be seen as regressive by a further along society shows just how far we have to go. That's the kind of debate that has value.

Yet, despite my disagreements with the MRA crowd, I can't deny there's a bit of a "the grass is greener on the other side of the fence" mentality coming from the feminist crowd when, really, men aren't exactly living perfect lives over here. For example, women being treated exactly the same as men would mean women occasionally getting publically beaten over trivial issues (which does happen, yes, and it's ugly as hell). Granted, that's the kind of "gender equality" that would come from a monkey's paw, and nobody really wants that, so the best choice in this case should be "Men shouldn't get beat up over trivial stuff either."

...which sounds a lot like something that an MRA would say, except that I don't really want to associate myself with them. Pretty much because of exactly the reason you stated: It's misogyny pretending to be a political cause.

I don't think there are serious feminists that disagree with this notion. The prevailing philosophy of mainstream feminism is that the same social constructs that serve to oppress women also create unrealistic expectations for men. And sadly, those men who run afoul of these expectations blame women, because they've totally bought into those expectations. This isn't really a groundbreaking thing I'm saying either. Just about every mainstream feminist venue I've looked at has given this opinion, more or less, on MRAs.

I will freely accept that there are many "informed" feminists who are actually aware of the issues and have thought about them and discussed them very deeply. My compliant however is against the "uninformed" feminists who just want to complain, regardless of whether or not it makes sense to, because such people are confusing the issues and spreading some very bad ideas. There are seemingly as many versions of feminism as there are feminists, so any blanket statement is going to be unfair by default, but there are some very bad trends that I feel need to be addressed. Most of these issues have to do with people not even thinking things through and adopting an oversimplified version of feminism.

And this really gets at what I think the root of your problem is. These "uninformed" feminists are in the minority, despite what you may think. They make lots of noise on tumblr, and bigots who want to discredit feminism will signal boost uninformed feminists as a strawman, but by and large those views are not considered mainstream, and no serious feminist will give those opinions much credit. There's literally no reason to try to debunk them. You are safe to ignore these people and call yourself a feminist.

 

[TheDarkKnightNoivern]

Adam forces Samus to endure unbearable heat until she's about to die, and later in the game shoots her in the back. Don't try to diminish this. What Adam does is ****ed up on a number of levels.

I think that was more of a game design flaw then anything

 

[FirestormNeos]

I have no use for fanservice in video games, movies, etc. However I don't believe character design holds enough weight in deciding if a female character is good or not to warrant the reaction people had with the heels.

Adam is hardly abusive.

Now I'm imagining a narrator saying this with extremely dry sarcasm during the scene where Samus gets shot in the back.

"Your partner doesn't force sexual activity or insist that you do something that makes you uncomfortable." Well... we'd never see this in a Nintendo game anyways, but no. This does not happen.

Giygas?

For example: people saying "We need less girls in (Smash/League of Legends/whatever game) because they're only there for fanservice and hentai" is actually a pretty nasty thing to say.

^ THIS ^

Like I said before, there are many versions of feminism and any blanket statement is unfair, but I could say the same thing about certain people who (falsely) call themselves "feminists", but are actually just misandrists looking for an excuse to hate men.

The worst of Tumbler in a nutshell.

Granted, that's the kind of "gender equality" that would come from a monkey's paw, and nobody really wants that, so the best choice in this case should be "Men shouldn't get beat up over trivial stuff either."

How about we just don't beat eachother up?

Also, I'm just going to say this if I hadn't already: Bottle Ship? Baby's Cry? Dear lord could you hit us over the head with that any harder? No one can really deny that the story is about motherhood at this point... except that they go ahead and ignore the concept of motherhood, which they set up as the central theme, until the game is about halfway over. After that, they continue to completely ignore it again until the very end of the game. Very poor story telling. Not going to lie.

Oh, there's also the fact that once Ridley "leaves the nest" (flees from the battle with Samus) he goes off to find another woman (the Queen Metroid) who then drains him dry until he dies in order to produce more metroids. It symbolically emulates the idea that a man is destroyed (by sacrifice of his life and his resources) by the woman for the sake of the offspring. This in turn implies that a man should want to avoid such a relationship. I don't know how many misogynist jokes you've heard before, but this idea closely resembles: "Women are like condoms, they spend more time in your wallet than on your ****". To be clear, I'm not saying that's funny, just that it's a misogynist attitude that's commonly held.

Reminds me of part of Yahtzee's review of Catherine. 4:07-4:51

Or maybe I'm just going crazy again.

 

[gamer8]

Makes me really sad that every time I check the character discussion section, this is the only thread for Zero Suit Samus that shows up as the most recent.

 

[FirestormNeos]

Makes me really sad that every time I check the character discussion section, this is the only thread for Zero Suit Samus that shows up as the most recent.

At least the discussion has remained competent thus far.

 

[Shiliski]

This seems to be another directionless rant. You start out saying that any kind of sexualization is wrong, then say that such a position is going to wind up contradictory. Which is it? Is it wrong, or is it a natural outgrowth of human nature?

No no no. My point isn't that "it's wrong but unavoidable". I said that there are lines that shouldn't be crossed, but I also wanted to point out that it'd be very difficult to create an idealized fictional woman who isn't physically attractive.



Putting Samus in a string bikini or g-strap for all smashers to see would be unquestionably on the wrong side of those lines, and I don't think that anyone can argue that. Putting her in a skin tight jump suit is "iffy" but justifiable for in canon reasons. Putting her in civilian clothes is nowhere near bad. Yet I'm not gonna lie, Samus in civilian clothes can still be considered sexy, primarily for reasons that have nothing to do with her "assets", such as her hair.

For what it's worth, this is really all I've ever felt about the heels. As I said earlier, my only real response to them is, "why?"

I could repeat what I said about the engineering considerations, what with putting rocket jets on the feet makes sense considering that Samus doesn't want to burn herself. It is literally the only place to safely put them on a suit like that. Also, the heels are pretty ugly, TBH, so the idea that they are sexualized is... I dunno. I mean, I know that there is probably some kind of R34 for ugly footwear but that kind of thing isn't really considered mainstream. I can't see them as anything oversexualized, especially compared to the Other M heels which served no practical purpose whatsoever.

Samus has always been sexualized. If you were expecting an anti-sexual statement from her then you're barking up the wrong tree. You seem like a respectful, if opinionated, person, so I feel bad that the only answer I can give is "because it's always been that way, and actually she used to show a lot more skin" but... that is actually the answer.

Samus and Adam's relationship isn't realistic. It's an ideal presented by the author. It suggests that a relationship where one individual can shoot another in the back, and be met with love and admiration is a beautiful one. Incidentally, though, Samus does feel relieved and alive again once Adam is dead, but because of the author's twisted sense of what is beautiful, Samus attributes this to Adam. The most ****ed up thing about their relationship is not that it's abusive, but that Samus represents some kind of twisted ideal who is happy in that relationship. That it's so unrealistic only makes it more disturbing.

If your claim is that it does not accurately represent an actual abusive relationship, then I agree. Fully. There is no such thing as a relationship that is both happy and abusive.

However, if you seriously want to say that it's an unrealistic example of abuse, then I can only stand by my statement that it does not meet the standards of a realistic example of abuse, and that your point in no way contradicts mine.

Adam forces Samus to endure unbearable heat until she's about to die, and later in the game shoots her in the back. Don't try to diminish this. What Adam does is ****ed up on a number of levels.

-snip-

You go into all this detail cherrypicking the red flags that the relationship doesn't raise, and the things that are healthy about it (although many of them are extremely debatable), but ignore the huge ****ing red flag that Adam literally batters Samus on-****ing-screen, unprovoked, when he literally has no reason to do so. He tortures her in the Hell Run, and presumably watches, because he had a feed the entire time. I think the most glaring indicator of abuse should be a pattern of actual ****ing abuse. Maybe I'm crazy. But in the event I'm not, then hell yeah Adam is abusive. And hell yeah it's really screwy and unrealistic that Samus takes it, and likes it. That's what the point of Elephant in the Room is, that the depiction of their relationship is a really horrific fantasy.

First off: Cherry picking? Sorry, but no. When people who have actual experience in identifying abusive relationships can't identify that as an abusive relationship, then I can't really accept it as a realistic abusive relationship. You don't get to ignore reality just because it doesn't jive with fantasy. I went directly to the dictionary definition of abuse and could not find a strong correlation between actual abusers and Adam. There's a lot more to abuse than physically hitting someone, and to claim otherwise is to really undermine people's understanding of what abuse really is.

I can just imagine some battered housewife right now saying, "Oh my husband doesn't beat me, he only yells at me and the kids daily while also taking my paycheck for himself because he needs it for his crack addiction. Clearly this isn't abusive at all!" Which... do I have to explain why that's sad? I really hope that I don't. I also hope you realize that it isn't hyperbole. People need to be clearly informed on what real abuse actually is. They need to not confuse some unrealistic fantasy for a sample of real abuse.

Now, what you're saying about how Elephant in the Room was actually claiming that it's wrong to depict Samus as "enjoying the abuse" then... uh. Well okay. Okay, I'll accept that particular point. I certainly didn't get that from the first time I saw the article, but sure. I have a hard time seeing it as abusive because it is in no way a realistic abusive relationship, but I'm not sure how to (or even if I can) argue against the claim that it's an "unrealistic" abusive relationship.

I think the root disagreement here is that I have a hard time putting Samus and Adam's relationship on the same level of horror as, say, what one of my friends (let's call him Tom) went through.

Tom had a homosexual relationship with Bill. This itself is not abusive, so please don't think that I'm implying that. It is a little strange because by all appearances Tom actually prefers women, so maybe he being forced into unwanted sexual contact orrrr... maybe he just doesn't want to come out of the closet. Who knows?

This was an online relationship, so physical abuse was in no way possible. Yet, Bill certainly abused Tom emotionally at nearly every chance by turning Tom's own friends against him, and whenever Tom started to question his relationship with Bill, Bill would use what's commonly called the "pity ploy", making Tom reluctant to leave because he felt sorry for Bill. Bill's abuse did not end with Tom, and Bill actually went on to abuse and manipulate a large number of other victims using very similar tactics. He would constantly attack people's reputation when they weren't around to defend it, constantly paint every conceivable action made by anyone in the worst light possible. Bill arranged things so that he wouldn't even have to abuse people himself, he could simply get one of his brainwashed "partners" (such as Tom) to attack whoever he wanted just by saying a few good trigger words.

It was a horrifying, dark and confusing experience; especially since, the whole time, I had no idea what was going on. All I saw was a lot of anger, mistrust, and emotionally violent outbursts at random people seemingly for no apparent reason. What's worse, by the time I realized what Tom was going through, Bill had already singled me out and had me excommunicated from that group. Probably because he saw me as a threat, possibly due to my stance about abuse awareness. After all, his whole set-up would've been completely ruined if any of his victims actually caught on to what he was doing to them, so someone who tries to inform others about real abuse would be... yeah, you could see why he'd want me to be socially eliminated.

That's just one example, but compared to something like that, I have a hard time thinking that Samus is going through anything remotely similar. Maybe Adam is the S to Samus's M, if we are to accept that Samus actually likes getting battered and abused, buuuut... bedroom fetishes are not the same thing as horrifying, mind-controlling abuse. I guess if I can't compare it to real abuse, I'd be better off comparing it to some kind of other dark fantasy, perhaps **** fantasy? I'm not really sure what to conclude because I don't know how to process impossible relationships that are both happy and abusive.

Well, it's not really a Nintendo thing. It's a Sakamoto thing. He was the writer, director, and producer. He had every license to do what he wanted in this thing. And like Elephant in the Room says, it's likely this relationship wasn't what Sakamoto was going for. But it doesn't preclude the fact that it's what he wound up with, and it's what he kept. And from that, the least damning thing you can surmise about this is that he's so incompetent he didn't see it. I personally find in more likely that he just sees nothing wrong with it, that he thinks he has made something beautiful. And that's really scary.

Ehhh, considering the blatant symbolism in other parts of the game, as well as successfully (though perhaps accidentally) showing an actual realistic abusive relationship with Melissa, I'm not sure I can believe that it's accidental.

To be clear, Melissa was marked for destruction/mindwipe/some terrible fate because she dared to "have opinions that differed from the other scientists", to paraphrase the game's exact words. That's a perfect example of what real abuse actually is. For bonus points: consider that Melissa is seen as an object (a machine) and not a person, which is pretty consistent with how abusers dehumanize their victims. That's on top of the usual misogyny.

If you've got some brain bleach ready, you could also consider the horrifying implications of Ridley aggressively forcing Samus onto her back, trying to penetrate her "armor" with his very sharp "tail", and Samus clearly not wanting this unwelcomed intrusion and going so far as to shoot at her overpowering attacker in the hopes of fending him off. If you want to interpret that as symbolism, then you have to accept that as a prime example of sexual abuse.

So... we have two examples of realistic abuse being treated as bad, and one example of unrealistic abuse being... put on some kind of pedestal? That's a lot of accidents. What's more: the game has contradicted itself again. Is the story saying that abuse is bad or is it secretly good? Elephant in the Room claimed that the abuse was oddly consistent, but I'm not really seeing any consistency in this game at all.

I think you're overthinking it. Silent protagonists in games tend to be perceived as stronger overall, because they allow the player to fill in their own interpretation of the protagonist's mindset. Link and Mario are both silent protagonists in the majority of their games, and no one thinks less of them. Because really, actions speak louder than words. Before, when Samus didn't speak much, there was little dissonance with how awesome she was in the games, because it was easy for the player to fill in the blanks with a consistent character when she did something surprising, like sparing the infant metroid in RoS. The fact that there was such a strongly consistent interpretation of Samus among fans prior to Other M, and the fact that Other M is so glaringly at odds with that interpretation speak, imo, to how powerful a device the silent protagonist is.

Maybe I am.

This is actually touched on in Elephant in the Room, as well. There's a really wrenching dichotomy in Other M between "gameplay Samus" and "cinematic Samus." One of them is competent and wiley, presumably very intelligent and rational. The other is simply not. Rather than attempt to address the two characterizations as a whole, which is fraught with contradictions and complications, Elephant in the Room only addresses the cinematic version of Samus. If you want to consider the two as whole, and just ignore the fact that it's almost impossible to believe that cinematic Samus does the things gameplay Samus does, that's your business, but it doesn't constitute a valid criticism of the essay, imo.

... except that the Hell Run is very much Gameplay Samus, not so much cinematic Samus, and the Hell Run was one of the central pieces of supporting evidence to the claim that Adam is an abuser. Watching it in theater mode the other day, I noticed that the Hell Run was entirely skipped (not just fast forwarded like other action segments, but actually skipped) and Samus just "magically" and suddenly appears in front of the lava boss. If you go by that, then cinematic Adam never put her through the Hell Run and instead made her activate the Varia suit the moment it was necessary.

It really doesn't go deeper than that. No serious feminist finds a problem with a female lead who fails initially, only succeed later.

I thought you were talking about, like, Frozen, or something. There's debate as to whether the movie is empowering, because on the one end, the main female roles are driven by something other than the men in the movie, and they do, indeed, pass the Bechdel test. However, on the other side of the coin, many female roles from the original story are condensed or removed altogether, or worse, replaced by men. And male roles are actually added that weren't in the original. The nature of this debate serves to illustrate that as a society we're still at a point where Frozen can be seen as progressive, but that it really could be seen as regressive by a further along society shows just how far we have to go. That's the kind of debate that has value.

I was just thinking the other day about how Frozen seems to have done a pretty good job... but I can still nitpick it a bit. There's a trend in media to have independent, strong, capable females as villains; and while Elsa was certainly... powerful (I can't really say capable since she couldn't control her powers) and independent (even to such a point as being happier by herself) it's almost by accident that she wasn't put into a villain's role. The only reason she isn't a villain is because, once they wrote her villain song, "Let it Go", it made her too easy to identify with. They wanted to keep the song so... they chose not to have her as the villain.

I don't think there are serious feminists that disagree with this notion. The prevailing philosophy of mainstream feminism is that the same social constructs that serve to oppress women also create unrealistic expectations for men. And sadly, those men who run afoul of these expectations blame women, because they've totally bought into those expectations. This isn't really a groundbreaking thing I'm saying either. Just about every mainstream feminist venue I've looked at has given this opinion, more or less, on MRAs.

And this really gets at what I think the root of your problem is. These "uninformed" feminists are in the minority, despite what you may think. They make lots of noise on tumblr, and bigots who want to discredit feminism will signal boost uninformed feminists as a strawman, but by and large those views are not considered mainstream, and no serious feminist will give those opinions much credit. There's literally no reason to try to debunk them. You are safe to ignore these people and call yourself a feminist.

I hear this a lot, but rarely do I see details. Instead I often see what you call the tumblr-level stuff that no thinking person can seriously agree with. Since they are the most vocal, they're also the most likely to be listened to by companies. I can't really "safely ignore them". Real gender equality should be the loudest voice, not these... crazies.

Where is this mainstream feminism? I'd really like to know what's considered the norm, because the tumblr bull**** is really not making me happy. Trying to find stuff on youtube leads to such silliness as five completely different videos all titled "The problem with feminism" despite being made separately by five different people, and maybe if I'm lucky I'll find someone whose opinion isn't easily debunked.

Also:

The prevailing philosophy of mainstream feminism is that the same social constructs that serve to oppress women also create unrealistic expectations for men.

This is true, and I'd like to add that many social constructs that objectify women also paint men in a horrifically bad light. If you want an example, I could point you to certain DoA commercials. "She kicks high", while old, comes immediately to mind.


Edit because I missed this earlier.

@ Shiliski : Your post was a pleasure to read. Thanks for sharing your thoughts; it's great to see a well thought out discussion of a topic that is often remarkably one-sided and full of vitriol. What you've said makes a lot of sense and is great food for thought.

Thank you so much for saying so. I'm also glad that I can have this kind of discussion in an atmosphere of respect and consideration of other's opinions. The other points being made in this thread have also caused me to see things in a ... somewhat different light, so I feel that the discussion is beneficial for me as well.

 

[Knight Dude]

I'm sorry if I had posted in this thread earlier, but I don't think I did. So, I guess I could throw in my two cents.

Personally, I can't say I was all that annoyed or offended myself when I saw the heels. But I knew that a ton of people would be. Whether it was all that warranted or not. In my opinion I don't think it was really warranted to react so angrily. That might have to do with me feeling that people have gotten so sensitive these days, getting offended by every little thing. Or blowing a situation out of proportion.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's dumb. But it's a video game, games tend to have a lot of goofy(or more accurately, unrealistic)stuff thrown in to make the game more enjoyable. The heels more or less act as a means to justify altering Zero Suit Samus' moves. Such as having use the Jet Heels to recover on the stage, rather than the original tether recovery. Which I though was cool. I personally don't like tether recovery in Smash. I find it a little unreliable. At least for a primary recovery option.

I mean, Samus's Jet Heels are just as ridiculous as Raiden's Sword Heels in MGR: Revengeance. But as goofy as they are, they serve a purpose within the gameplay of the given games you can play as them. Both serve as an aid in combat, Samus with her recovery, and shooting burst of fire from her feet. And Raiden so that he deals more damage with his kicks, along with extending the range of said kicks.

Sorry if this post was a little too long. I can admit I'm probably not the best to get for these kind of debates. Since I usually have a lot of apathy towards this stuff.

 

[Shiliski]

Now I'm imagining a narrator saying this with extremely dry sarcasm during the scene where Samus gets shot in the back.

Mostly referring to the first few seconds.

Giygas?

I...

...

I...

... I guess I can't think that the Ridley **** implications are accidental anymore. WTB Brain Bleach.

 

[FirestormNeos]

Also, the heels are pretty ugly, TBH, so the idea that they are sexualized is... I dunno. I mean, I know that there is probably some kind of R34 for ugly footwear but that kind of thing isn't really considered mainstream.

Spoiler

First off: Cherry picking? Sorry, but no. When people who have actual experience in identifying abusive relationships can't identify that as an abusive relationship, then I can't really accept it as a realistic abusive relationship. You don't get to ignore reality just because it doesn't jive with fantasy. I went directly to the dictionary definition of abuse and could not find a strong correlation between actual abusers and Adam. There's a lot more to abuse than physically hitting someone, and to claim otherwise is to really undermine people's understanding of what abuse really is.

Can we still arrest Adam for shooting Samus in the back?

If you've got some brain bleach ready, you could also consider the horrifying implications of Ridley aggressively forcing Samus onto her back, trying to penetrate her "armor" with his very sharp "tail", and Samus clearly not wanting this unwelcomed intrusion and going so far as to shoot at her overpowering attacker in the hopes of fending him off. If you want to interpret that as symbolism, then you have to accept that as a prime example of sexual abuse.

The worst part about this is that that probably exists somewhere.

I was just thinking the other day about how Frozen seems to have done a pretty good job... but I can still nitpick it a bit. There's a trend in media to have independent, strong, capable females as villains; and while Elsa was certainly... powerful (I can't really say capable since she couldn't control her powers) and independent (even to such a point as being happier by herself) it's almost by accident that she wasn't put into a villain's role. The only reason she isn't a villain is because, once they wrote her villain song, "Let it Go", it made her too easy to identify with. They wanted to keep the song so... they chose not to have her as the villain.

That's it, I've had enough. I'm going to the store to get brain bleach to get that song out of my head, first thing in the morning!

This is true, and I'd like to add that many social constructs that objectify women also paint men in a horrifically bad light. If you want an example, I could point you to certain DoA commercials. "She kicks high", while old, comes immediately to mind.

What the devil is that supposed to mean?

Mostly referring to the first few seconds.

I...

...

I...

... I guess I can't think that the Ridley **** implications are accidental anymore. WTB Brain Bleach.

DAMN NINTENDO, YOU SCARY.

 

[Shiliski]

What the devil is that supposed to mean?

Um. Well simply put.

I dare anyone to argue how this doesn't paint men as being shamelessly perverted. Yes, it shows a woman being seen as a sexual object, but it also shows a male lusting after that object as if he were some sort of animal. I actually find it pretty insulting and, to quote a friend's response to it: "Why would anyone want to portray their fanbase like that?"

Can we still arrest Adam for shooting Samus in the back?

Well... that depends on whether or not Samus wants to press charges? It's still physical assault.

 

[FirestormNeos]

Um. Well simply put.

Is this supposed to be cringeworthy, or is the acting just bad naturally?

Where did video game advertisements go so wrong?

I dare anyone to argue how this doesn't paint men as being shamelessly perverted.

I didn't see advertisements for Twilight showing two chicks awkwardly coming up with excuses while it cuts back to shots of the characters making out or the werewolf's abs or anything.

Conclusion: DoA is an even worse love story then Twilight, or at least not as well advertised. That is wrong on so many levels, I don't even want to count them all.

Yes, it shows a woman being seen as a sexual object, but it also shows a male lusting after that object as if he were some sort of animal.

Question: is it possible to be both misogynistic and misandristic at the same time? This commercial might be.

I actually find it pretty insulting and, to quote a friend's response to it: "Why would anyone want to portray their fanbase like that?"

Two/Three words: Rogue Ad Agent.

Well... that depends on whether or not Samus wants to press charges? It's still physical assault.

In this scenario, she could easily sue his cyberspacial *** for every cent he owns. Any drunken lawyer straight out of law school could have this case thrown away by the end of the month. Heck, visual evidence is practically given to him/her on a silver platter in the form of, well, this.

Actually, that sounds like the possible plot to the next Metroid game.

 

[Shiliski]

Is this supposed to be cringeworthy, or is the acting just bad naturally?

I think... both? I'm not really sure. Whatever it was trying to accomplish, I'm not really sure if it worked. It certainly ensured that I'd never go anywhere near DoA3, that much is true. I can't be the only one because this is around the time I stopped hearing good things, or even anything, about the DoA series. Before this point, I started hearing murmurs about how it was a great fighting game. Granted, that's anecdotal and not indicative of the big picture.

Where did video game advertisements go so wrong?

Right about here, I think.

Question: is it possible to be both misogynistic and misandristic at the same time? This commercial might be.

Yes, and this commercial wouldn't be the first example of "hating on both genders". Sexism hurts us all.

What this proves to me is... while we accept some amount of sexuality in games, and while some might actually actively seek it out, we don't really want to have it shoved in our faces, regardless of what money-hungry companies might be occasionally tempted to think. When I think about a company that goes way too far in terms of sexuality, I think of this.

They pushed it to an extreme in DoA3's commercials and then went beyond that extreme with DoA beach volleyball, which is straight up shameless fanservice and pandering to a perverted male market which... I'm not sure if it even exists? Wiki is being stingy about the number of sales, but the "Xtreme Volleyball" series does seem to suffer from constantly lowering scores that seems to correlate with people becoming more and more tired of this crap.

I'm not sure what's more laughable, the fact that it was given such low review scores and poor reception despite the constant outcry of "sex sells", or the fact that they continued to hold on to this insane extremist belief and continued to develop these kinds of games even as they gained increasingly worse receptions.

This is a shining example of a company being completely ignorant of the market.

 

[FirestormNeos]

It certainly ensured that I'd never go anywhere near DoA3, that much is true.

I remember hearing somewhere that one of the games has an amazing tutorial that helps you get into the competitive scene better, but that might just fanboy BS as usual.

I can't be the only one because this is around the time I stopped hearing good things, or even anything, about the DoA series.

Other then what I just said, same boat as you. But that could just be because everyone's talking about Smash 4 coming out.

Right about here, I think.

When was that commercial made?

Yes, and this commercial wouldn't be the first example of "hating on both genders". Sexism hurts us all.

since sexism is hating a particular gender, what do we call this?

They pushed it to an extreme in DoA3's commercials and then went beyond that extreme with DoA beach volleyball, which is straight up shameless fanservice and pandering to a perverted male market which... I'm not sure if it even exists? Wiki is being stingy about the number of sales, but the "Xtreme Volleyball" series does seem to suffer from constantly lowering scores that seems to correlate with people becoming more and more tired of this crap.

So many good jokes I could make here.

I'm not sure what's more laughable, the fact that it was given such low review scores and poor reception despite the obvious attitude of "sex sells, so we should just focus on sex and nothing else", or the fact that they continued to hold on to this insane belief and continued to develop these kinds of games even as they gained increasingly worse receptions.

Moral of the story: if at first you don't succeed, don't try the same stupid trick twice. In this case, the same stupid trick is "bothering to bring the game to the US."

 

[GunGunW]

I still maintain that on a personal level, her heels are aesthetically an eye sore.

 

[RidleyKraid187]

This.:

 

[Shiliski]

When was that commercial made?

I assume around 2001? It's an old commercial. Sadly Team Ninja hasn't learned their lesson in 13 years.

This.:

This man understands why I don't care about the heels.

 

[FirestormNeos]

I assume around 2001?

Wow, just wow.

I would just like to applaud their ad agent for keeping this scam going for nearly 13 years. Most companies would wise up to sabotage after the first wave of bad commercials.

 

[ph00tbag]

First off: Cherry picking? Sorry, but no. When people who have actual experience in identifying abusive relationships can't identify that as an abusive relationship, then I can't really accept it as a realistic abusive relationship. You don't get to ignore reality just because it doesn't jive with fantasy. I went directly to the dictionary definition of abuse and could not find a strong correlation between actual abusers and Adam. There's a lot more to abuse than physically hitting someone, and to claim otherwise is to really undermine people's understanding of what abuse really is.

Most of the examples you give proving the relationship is healthy are, by your own admission, stretches. Others rely on trusting Samus to give an accurate account of the situation, which strikes me as naive, since her own account apparently conflicts with what is seen on-screen. You continue to attempt to diminish what is so bad about actually attacking or endangering someone for no apparent reason, and instead highlight ways in which Adam doesn't fit the profile of an abuser, again using debatable examples, or Samus's debatably reliable narrative. That's cherry picking, sir.

That's just one example, but compared to something like that, I have a hard time thinking that Samus is going through anything remotely similar. Maybe Adam is the S to Samus's M, if we are to accept that Samus actually likes getting battered and abused, buuuut... bedroom fetishes are not the same thing as horrifying, mind-controlling abuse. I guess if I can't compare it to real abuse, I'd be better off comparing it to some kind of other dark fantasy, perhaps **** fantasy? I'm not really sure what to conclude because I don't know how to process impossible relationships that are both happy and abusive.

Even in these situations, there's still something really troubling about what's going on. Aforementioned wrongness of sexual tension between Samus and her "father figure" aside, this is not even a healthy dom/sub relationship, because in such a relationship there are explicit lines of consent, and clear boundaries between fantasy/role play and honest intimacy. Entering into such a relationship involves establishing a language of consent. For example in an ownership relationship, the owner can't just beat their owned. The owned has to "break a rule", or consent by some other means of the language of consent. Unless "leave the military and disappear for a decade" breaks a pre-established rule, Adam clearly oversteps any obvious boundary. It's assault, and it's wrong, and his flimsy excuses for these things are so bad they just come off as manipulative. That's ****ed up, and I can't help but wonder why you defend it at all, let alone with debatable bullet points and examples of ways it's not as bad as it could be. It's not the worst example of abuse or manipulation out there, sure. But it's still wrong.

So... we have two examples of realistic abuse being treated as bad, and one example of unrealistic abuse being... put on some kind of pedestal? That's a lot of accidents. What's more: the game has contradicted itself again. Is the story saying that abuse is bad or is it secretly good? Elephant in the Room claimed that the abuse was oddly consistent, but I'm not really seeing any consistency in this game at all.

It's saying the pattern describing Samus's relationship with Adam is oddly consistent. It even concedes that it may not have been intentional. What is damning is that through these apparent mistakes, no attempt to correct them was made. The mistreatment of Melissa was condemned because it kept in line with the theme that one should not play God. Abuse was a side effect.

... except that the Hell Run is very much Gameplay Samus, not so much cinematic Samus, and the Hell Run was one of the central pieces of supporting evidence to the claim that Adam is an abuser. Watching it in theater mode the other day, I noticed that the Hell Run was entirely skipped (not just fast forwarded like other action segments, but actually skipped) and Samus just "magically" and suddenly appears in front of the lava boss. If you go by that, then cinematic Adam never put her through the Hell Run and instead made her activate the Varia suit the moment it was necessary.

Unfortunately, just because the Hell Run is not intended to be part of the narrative doesn't make it not part of the narrative. Theater Mode stinks slightly less; congratulations. The game as a whole, though, is rancid.

Where is this mainstream feminism? I'd really like to know what's considered the norm, because the tumblr bull**** is really not making me happy. Trying to find stuff on youtube leads to such silliness as five completely different videos all titled "The problem with feminism" despite being made separately by five different people, and maybe if I'm lucky I'll find someone whose opinion isn't easily debunked.

Well, first and foremost, not on Tumblr. In fact, in general, just avoid Tumblr if you want to be informed about any topic. I usually agree with the stuff on Jezebel (which is like Cosmo for informed people--the people who write for this are actual journalists as opposed to your typical Tumblr sjw). If you want to start dishing out the big bucks for scholarly articles, this website apparently lists a whole bunch: http://libr.org/wgss/projects/serial.html

Suffice to say, when I talk to women who are active in educating themselves about this, they are genuinely concerned about making sure everyone is respected for their decisions if their decisions hurt no one else.

 

[Shiliski]

Most of the examples you give proving the relationship is healthy are, by your own admission, stretches. Others rely on trusting Samus to give an accurate account of the situation, which strikes me as naive, since her own account apparently conflicts with what is seen on-screen. You continue to attempt to diminish what is so bad about actually attacking or endangering someone for no apparent reason, and instead highlight ways in which Adam doesn't fit the profile of an abuser, again using debatable examples, or Samus's debatably reliable narrative. That's cherry picking, sir.


Even in these situations, there's still something really troubling about what's going on. Aforementioned wrongness of sexual tension between Samus and her "father figure" aside, this is not even a healthy dom/sub relationship, because in such a relationship there are explicit lines of consent, and clear boundaries between fantasy/role play and honest intimacy. Entering into such a relationship involves establishing a language of consent. For example in an ownership relationship, the owner can't just beat their owned. The owned has to "break a rule", or consent by some other means of the language of consent. Unless "leave the military and disappear for a decade" breaks a pre-established rule, Adam clearly oversteps any obvious boundary. It's assault, and it's wrong, and his flimsy excuses for these things are so bad they just come off as manipulative. That's ****ed up, and I can't help but wonder why you defend it at all, let alone with debatable bullet points and examples of ways it's not as bad as it could be. It's not the worst example of abuse or manipulation out there, sure. But it's still wrong.


It's saying the pattern describing Samus's relationship with Adam is oddly consistent. It even concedes that it may not have been intentional. What is damning is that through these apparent mistakes, no attempt to correct them was made. The mistreatment of Melissa was condemned because it kept in line with the theme that one should not play God. Abuse was a side effect.

Unfortunately, just because the Hell Run is not intended to be part of the narrative doesn't make it not part of the narrative. Theater Mode stinks slightly less; congratulations. The game as a whole, though, is rancid.


Well, first and foremost, not on Tumblr. In fact, in general, just avoid Tumblr if you want to be informed about any topic. I usually agree with the stuff on Jezebel (which is like Cosmo for informed people--the people who write for this are actual journalists as opposed to your typical Tumblr sjw). If you want to start dishing out the big bucks for scholarly articles, this website apparently lists a whole bunch: http://libr.org/wgss/projects/serial.html

Suffice to say, when I talk to women who are active in educating themselves about this, they are genuinely concerned about making sure everyone is respected for their decisions if their decisions hurt no one else.

Hnnnn.... I almost didn't respond to this, other than to say "Thanks for the link" (which I do appreciate by the way), because... saying that an obviously misogynistic and terrible story like Other M "isn't accidentlaly showing an abusive relationship" is akin to saying that a proven murder "wasn't premeditated". It's a semantics argument that in the end doesn't really change whether or not we'll damn the game... it merely affects how much we'll damn it, and we can already condemn it quite a bit. Do we imprison Other M for life or do we give it the chair? Does it really make a difference in the end?

The argument about abuse isn't so much about defending Adam's behavior as much as it is arguing over semantics. Perhaps that's what you're referring to as "Cherry Picking". I certainly tried to find some excuse for him, but nothing really seems strong enough, so I guess I have to admit that there really is none. To me it seems to be bad writing that leads to unjustifiable physical assault and reckless endangerment, which are both terrible things regardless of any fear or control scheme. It's certainly a major betrayal if they come from a trusted source, but I can't quite classify them as abuse because it lacks the basic nature of abuse: which is control, domination, fear, and taking out your daily frustrations on your victim. To use a metaphor: sharks and tigers are both incredibly dangerous, but they are still completely different animals. In the same way, Physical Assault and Abusive Relationships are also fundamentally different. That's all.

To compare it to a disease, Adam and Samus's relationship has some symptoms of abuse, but I can't seem to actually find the distinctive tell-tale signs that outright say, "This is an abusive relationship." That doesn't really change the presence of physical assault or reckless endangerment, but it does mean that "abuse" is the wrong label to assign to it.

I still have a problem with Elephant in the Room, because the fact remains that the article not only contradicts itself, but it outright lies to the audience about the content of the game. These aren't tiny details, either. They are core to the very center of the entire argument. If you make a claim, and try to back up your claim with "facts", and those facts turn out to be lies, then the entire argument is worthless. That's not really debatable. It's not "iffy" or "borderline". It's flat-out wrong. Also, the article outright claims that Samus "enjoys the abuse" which frankly outright implies some form of submissive masochism which in turn means sexuality, sooo... that's on the article itself, unless you want to argue that she enjoys it for other reasons.

Now, I'll grant you that disproving the validity of one argument doesn't itself prove that Adam is not abusive to Samus, nor does it erase his two clearly criminal acts. It could just be a badly constructed argument that fails to do what it set out to do. However, if you want to make that claim, you'd have to come up with an entirely different argument based upon entirely different facts (facts that are actual facts and not lies) and use those to back up your claim. If it's possible to construct an actual credible argument that Adam is abusive, then sure, but even if you construct a perfect argument don't expect me to take Elephant in the Room even remotely seriously, because it wouldn't be Elephant in the Room that convinces me.

But let's say we actually want to construct an argument that proves Adam to be abusive. The way to do that would be to go do research on real abuse and then compare that to Other M, and see where they're similar and where they're different.

Here are some websites that are not RFC.
http://www.campbell.edu/pdf/student-services/counseling/red-flag-abusive-personality.pdf (My new favorite because it goes into the actual theory of abuse instead of just providing a checklist that might not cover every scenario)
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/anger-in-the-age-entitlement/200812/are-you-dating-abuser (It's not all-inclusive but it has some good stuff)
http://safeplace.org/learn-more/domesticviolence/redflags/ (Finally one that assumes that not all victims are female)
http://www.caring-unlimited.org/wha...tims-and-survivors/is-my-relationship-abusive (Another decent checklist.)
http://www.thehotline.org/2012/09/red-flags-of-abuse/ (short list, but it does back up my statement that abuse has a lot to do with control)

I went to RFC first because I saw them the most often on my campus before I graduated, so they came to mind first. However, these other resources also give reliable data, though I can't say that all of them are complete. The first one is by far the best.

Sadly, just about every resource out there assumes that your abuser is a boyfriend/husband and that you are a woman, flatly ignoring the facts that men can be abused and that abuse can come from literally every kind of relationship. However, you can get an intuitive idea of what abuse is really like from these kinds of things. It's worth noting that false positives are so common that many of these kinds of resources include disclaimers such as "Your relationships is healthy if..." Or to quote the one listed as my new favorite, "Behavior is non-abusive if it lacks the elements of control, fear and intimidation." This is actually stated three different times in three different ways, so it's really important.

Alternatively It's perfectly valid to decide not to care because regardless of semantics Other M still has a very misogynistic and poorly told story, and Adam is at best an idiot and at worst an asshole.

Shooting Samus in the back is physical assault, sure. The Hell Run is reckless endangerment, sure. There is no way to argue that because it is blatantly, literally, and obviously true. However, ****ed up these things may be, they are not abuse in the same way that grand larceny is not attempted murder. I'm not saying this to defend these actions, but to classify them.


And again, thanks for the recommendations and links. As for tumbler... well... It's not that I go to tumblr as much as it is that tumblr has a way of invading nearly everywhere else I want to go, which kindof makes them a constant annoyance that I wish would go away. I don't go to them, they go to me. Alternatively, someone hears about them and complains about them to me, or I see an article on some SJW outrage episode, or some other thing.

EDIT: I will say however, that joining an argument about "whether or not something qualifies as abuse" and turning it into "whether or not something is morally wrong" is moving the goal post. It isn't cherry picking to start at the first argument and go "well It's not abuse for the following reasons". It's actually cherry picking to ignore all that and say "Well it's still wrong!".

 

[ph00tbag]

I'll grant, there are not explicit examples of fear, domination or control in the text of Other M. The problem is, without assuming these to be major aspects of Adam's internal motivations, the pattern of abuse, and Samus's complete change of personality in comparison to what little we've seen in the other games, makes no sense. We can't explain why Adam does any of the stuff he does, or why Samus makes no attempt to get away from him, unless we overlay a relationship that is, at its core, abusive.

I don't know if you're aware of the concept of the Death of the Author. The gist of it is that in literary analysis, authorial intent is meaningless, because that can't be known except through the text. The analyst must comprehend the story and make it make sense as it stands, by filling in the blanks as the story demands. The end result is a reflection of the storyteller's psyche. This is the kind of analysis Elephant in the Room uses. When confronted with several scenes that make no sense, it finds an explanation that "makes too much sense," and concludes that it reflects the author's beliefs about what constitutes a loving relationship.

That's Elephant in the Room in two paragraphs. I don't really see what's self-contradictory. I've read the essay several times, and I've always found it to be internally consistent.

 

[I_hate_usernames]

I don't hate them because of feminism or womans rights or anything of that sorts.

I hate them because they look unergonomic as f^*& and it's bringing the Health and safety standards fiend in me!