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Mass Effect's 'Aliens' aren't even remotely alien. Even the most alien of them (the Geth) aren't alien enough to make comprehending them all that difficult and the Hanar who should be utterly incomprehensible to the rest of the galaxy just end up as being glowing jellyfish that talk funny and never have anything important to do with the plot. The fact that the majority of Mass Effect's aliens are basically the CGI version of a man with a rubber forehead is, I believe, entirely deliberate and intended to evoke comparisons to 'golden age' sci-fi like Star Trek and Star Wars. This is also why we get E: I feel I should add that the Asari would be infinitely less absurd if Bioware had taken the 'every species sees the Asari as an attractive vaguely alien female version of their own species' that they hinted at a few times throughout the series and ratified it. If it turned out the Asari look like attractive humanoid women because of some kind of psychic camoflague that makes them appear as attractive women to any species that would redeem the Asari a lot in my eyes. I was kind of sad when I finished ME3 and realised that plot thread was left hanging and ignored. Neruz fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Aug 7, 2014 |
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Aug 7, 2014 05:24
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Where is that Hanar spectre and what is it up to is what I want to know. A lot of sci-fi writing just starts falling flat when they suffer from a lack of imagination. It's a damned shame.
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Aug 7, 2014 05:35
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Guys, our first introduction to Morinth is talking to a tearful mother about how bad dyke Morinth stole her good little straight girl and turned her gay and hosed her to death with space AIDS. I agree it's unintentional but the parallels to moral panic, homosexuality, predatory sexuality directed at the young and impressionable, socially transgressive behavior in general, and AIDS are all there. Morinth reads like a hysterical caricature of a San Francisco lesbian. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Aug 7, 2014 |
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Aug 7, 2014 05:40
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Arglebargle III posted:Guys, our first introduction to Morinth is talking to a tearful mother about how bad dyke Morinth stole her good little straight girl and turned her gay and hosed her to death with space AIDS. To be fair though; Morinth actually does kill the people she has sex with, unlike gay people. A moral panic might be slightly more justified if the target of the panic is actually a legit serial killer. Note slightly.
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Aug 7, 2014 07:22
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Neruz posted:To be fair though; Morinth actually does kill the people she has sex with, unlike gay people. A moral panic might be slightly more justified if the target of the panic is actually a legit serial killer. I thought the generalization was all gay kids are dead to their parents anyway? The homicidal alien lesbo is the killer, and gay was the murder weapon.
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Aug 7, 2014 07:28
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Bootcha posted:I thought the generalization was all gay kids are dead to their parents anyway? The homicidal alien lesbo is the killer, and gay was the murder weapon. While you can certainly make the comparison the actual murder weapon was a nervous system overload via undefined biotic means. I can definitely see the comparison but I feel that it is an unfair comparison because Morinth is an actual serial killer who actually does kill the people she has sex with; these are objective realities rather than utter bullshit made up by scared hate-mongers.
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Aug 7, 2014 07:33
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Neruz posted:these are objective realities
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Aug 7, 2014 08:01
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Soricidus posted:-- an actual phrase used by a forums poster to describe the fictional behavior of a blue-skinned space babe in a silly space opera video game. The fact that the Asari exist in a fictional universe is literally the only reason that there can be objective realities in that universe; unlike in reality in the Mass Effect universe certain things are objective truths because the writers (aka the people who created said universe) have stated as such.
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Aug 7, 2014 08:29
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Neruz posted:The fact that the Asari exist in a fictional universe is literally the only reason that there can be objective realities in that universe; unlike in reality in the Mass Effect universe certain things are objective truths because the writers (aka the people who created said universe) have stated as such. So, in this case some posters said they could see parallels between the fictional killer space lesbians and our society's narratives about killer gays. And your response was "no, that's not a fair comparison because the space lesbians really do kill everyone they seduce". Don't you see how that's irrelevant, even without getting into advanced concepts such as how the story might not actually be telling the truth?
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Aug 7, 2014 09:31
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Soricidus posted:Don't you see how that's irrelevant, even without getting into advanced concepts such as how the story might not actually be telling the truth?
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Aug 7, 2014 09:44
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Well, this is a thread where people cite tvtropes as an argument. Seriously, if "there's no message, ignore anything that looks like an allegory" is the intended interpretation then the writer should be ashamed. If it's the interpretation you make you should be ashamed. If you tell people to stop thinking you should be doubly ashamed. Also allegories don't have to be 1:1. In fact they would kind of stop being allegories at that point. You are thinking of analogues. Anyway, one reason it's kind of hard to buy Morinth represents only a sexual predator is that the only tool she uses is seduction. Up until they magically die during the sex, her victims completely on board with what's going on. Maybe you could frame Morinth in a way that didn't come off like that, but c'mon, the victim's diary actually has a line to the effect of "is it wrong to have gay feelings?".
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Aug 7, 2014 09:52
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Soricidus posted:Yes, but the discussion was about why the writers decided to make those things be true in their fiction, and what concepts in our culture might consciously or unconsciously have inspired them. Except that the people who made the comparison also stated that it was almost certainly pure coincidence so it says nothing about why the writers decided to make those things be true. The writers at Bioware aren't actually afraid of The Gay, they just accidentally wrote themselves into a storyline that looks superficially like a story someone who was afraid of The Gay might tell. And as I said I can absolutely see the comparison; it's unfortunate and pretty ovbiously accidental but the comparison is there.
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Aug 7, 2014 10:06
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It's not wrong to have gay feelings, but it is wrong to knowingly infect a partner with HIV! I'm sure that during the Gay Plague there were plenty of people who were totally on board with the gay sex until the part where they magically died.
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Aug 7, 2014 10:09
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Neruz posted:Except that the people who made the comparison also stated that it was almost certainly pure coincidence so it says nothing about why the writers decided to make those things be true. Death of the author. I don't think anyone thinks Bioware intended Morinth to be a ~*gay vampire in space*~ but that's the unfortunate truth, and saying that is what allows Bioware to write a better, less implicitly homophobic story in the future. This is one of the reasons that treating stories as crafted objects, rather than 'ideas that just happen to storytellers', is so important.
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Aug 7, 2014 10:37
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Lt. Danger posted:Death of the author. Would it make any significant difference if the person who Morinth killed was a young Human man instead of a 'girl' Asari? I'm wondering if it was just the specific circumstances that bring to mind the analogy or if it's something more systemic in the entire plot concept.
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Aug 7, 2014 10:47
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Nef was human. I'd say it'd make a difference if she was male instead.
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Aug 7, 2014 10:53
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BioMe posted:Well, this is a thread where people cite tvtropes as an argument. Seriously, if "there's no message, ignore anything that looks like an allegory" is the intended interpretation then the writer should be ashamed. If it's the interpretation you make you should be ashamed. If you tell people to stop thinking you should be doubly ashamed. This would be fine if it was just a case of highlighting a funny way something could be read and then throwing it away and moving on. The problem is that there's stuff in this thread that starts to swing into, "well, if you look at it like this, then the conflict between the Geth and the Quarians is a metaphor for the Boer War, and I can't believe Bioware allowed it to stay in the game". Which seems to just be masturbatory self-indulgence for people who want to pretend that they're Roger Ebert and that video games work the same way as movies. Are people suggesting that Bioware should be aware of your own personal hang-ups and avoid putting things that could tangentially reference them in the stories they write? Lt. Danger posted:This is one of the reasons that treating stories as crafted objects, rather than 'ideas that just happen to storytellers', is so important. Mass Effect as a trilogy runs to something like 120-150 hours of content though, compared to a movie trilogy which has no more than nine. You've got a team of ~15 writers putting together their own individual segments pretty much independently. I genuinely don't think it's realistic in that format to exclude any content that doesn't serve the overall principles of the story. Like I say, I think that's people wanting to apply the metrics they've seen cinema reviewers use and ending up trying to bash a round peg through a square hole.
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Aug 7, 2014 11:04
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FullLeatherJacket posted:This would be fine if it was just a case of highlighting a funny way something could be read and then throwing it away and moving on. The problem is that there's stuff in this thread that starts to swing into, "well, if you look at it like this, then the conflict between the Geth and the Quarians is a metaphor for the Boer War, and I can't believe Bioware allowed it to stay in the game". Which seems to just be masturbatory self-indulgence for people who want to pretend that they're Roger Ebert and that video games work the same way as movies. Ah yes, the obscure subject of homosexuality. Also if they directly referenced the Boer War during the Geth/Quarian plot then it would be a pretty good interpretation of it, yeah.
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Aug 7, 2014 11:12
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Lt. Danger posted:Nef was human. I'd say it'd make a difference if she was male instead.
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Aug 7, 2014 11:15
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Lt. Danger posted:treating stories as crafted objects, rather than 'ideas that just happen to storytellers', is so important. This is why it's so important to separate the questions "what is this?" and "is this well-made?"
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Aug 7, 2014 11:16
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Sombrerotron posted:It wouldn't change the fact that Morinth's character is innately problematic if she is to be regarded as representing anything in particular. If she exclusively targeted men, she'd just be a heterosexual rather than a bisexual succubus/witch (if it's really appropriate to apply those terms to asari, anyway), and as such be a negative symbol of female sexuality in general. Oh yeah. I just meant in the context of 'predatory homosexuals'. quote:This is why it's so important to separate the questions "what is this?" and "is this well-made?" Agreed. You need to know what something is before you can decide if it's well-made. But not the sort of thing I was driving at there. quote:"well, if you look at it like this, then the conflict between the Geth and the Quarians is a metaphor for the Boer War, and I can't believe Bioware allowed it to stay in the game" Here's a secret: it's about viability, not validity.
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Aug 7, 2014 11:24
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FullLeatherJacket posted:This would be fine if it was just a case of highlighting a funny way something could be read and then throwing it away and moving on. I think that's all this is. Did anyone say it was more than that? Morinth is an accidental recreation of an offensive stereotype. It's funny because the writers obviously didn't intend it and yet blundered straight into it. If you think it's a stretch though, just wait until we get to the And they're addicted to sex and magnetically attractive to everyone and... it's just... how did they not... worse and worse... 
Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 12:05 on Aug 7, 2014 |
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Aug 7, 2014 12:00
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BioMe posted:Ah yes, the obscure subject of homosexuality. Also if they directly referenced the Boer War during the Geth/Quarian plot then it would be a pretty good interpretation of it, yeah. I'd be more willing to hear out the argument if Morinth was the only character in the series that's bisexual or homosexual, same as I'd be more willing to hear out arguments about the position of women in the game if Bioware hadn't gone to significant expense in allowing for the player-character to be a (bisexual) woman in the first place. Arglebargle III posted:I think that's all this is. Did anyone say it was more than that? Morinth is an accidental recreation of an offensive stereotype. It's funny because the writers obviously didn't intend it and yet blundered straight into it. Well, there seems to be some suggestion that Bioware has an obligation to not put things into their games that if you squint hard enough to see a sailboat and take out of all context, might be seen as offensive to somebody somewhere. It seems a very silly way to approach things and opens the door to a litany of perceived grievances that don't actually touch on whether the game is good or bad either as a story or simply as a game.
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Aug 7, 2014 12:57
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Arglebargle III posted:I think that's all this is. Did anyone say it was more than that? Morinth is an accidental recreation of an offensive stereotype. It's funny because the writers obviously didn't intend it and yet blundered straight into it. I'll be honest, I never made the connection until it was pointed out in this thread. Now it's pointed out I see it and it's blindingly ovbious, but I didn't see it when I played the game.
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Aug 7, 2014 13:17
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FullLeatherJacket posted:I'd be more willing to hear out the argument if Morinth was the only character in the series that's bisexual or homosexual, same as I'd be more willing to hear out arguments about the position of women in the game if Bioware hadn't gone to significant expense in allowing for the player-character to be a (bisexual) woman in the first place. So does the "everyone get along" message invalidate any grievances about the greedy space Jews or vice versa? Like who decides which way it goes? Or maybe you are confused about whether the writing or the writer is on trial here.
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Aug 7, 2014 13:37
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BioMe posted:So does the "everyone get along" message invalidate any grievances about the greedy space Jews or vice versa? Like who decides which way it goes? I'm not even sure in this context who the Space Jews are supposed to be. I do think there are some characters in science fiction that are basically just stereotypes wearing a hat (Jar-Jar Binks), but suggesting that a race of bisexual aliens producing a bisexual serial killer is something worthy of lengthy debate on that basis seems to be grasping at straws to be upset by. The real problem with Morinth is just that she's really boring for what she's supposed to be written as, and Samara is almost entirely more interesting on every level. Of course, that's a subjective decision, but everything is in that regard and that goes on to a deeper conversation. At what point do we decide something is racist? Is it when one nutter with a victim complex says it is? Or is it when you have a consensus, and what then of minority opinions?
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Aug 7, 2014 14:51
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The Volus are pretty ovbiously space Jews, even I noticed that one.
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Aug 7, 2014 15:15
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The Ferengi? Yes. The Volus? I don't see the sailboat on that one.
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Aug 7, 2014 15:36
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Well, you have to remember that not long ago, conflating homosexuality with pedophilia and sex crime was normal. There are still people who would respond to "well Ardat-Yakshi really are like that!" with "Gays really are like that too!" I think I've laid out why it's not at all grasping at straws. I would say it's unintentional. I can't imagine Bioware would knowingly okay what looks very much like a lifelong prison for the deviant, dangerous sex-criminals-by-birth, whose only representative member is a remorseless, clubbing, drugging, omnisexual predator! Remember, these are recent stereotypes about homosexuals, made objectively true in Mass Effect by the writers. Writers who created these not-at-all-1980s-gay-stereotyples and then immediately turned around and put them all in jail for life. I'm not offended, I think it's hilarious. The Volus as Jews I would say are actually a case of stretching. The Volus are space merchants. Their only attribute that you could connect to jews, or even anti-jewish propaganda, is their merchant-ness and their living apart, but they aren't even really separated off in the game world anyway. You basically have to go "merchant=jew, nailed it!" to slap the Space Jew label on the Volus. It fits about as well as it fits, for example, the Ferengi from Star Trek, which is to say not very well. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Aug 7, 2014 |
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Aug 7, 2014 15:37
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Okay, so maybe Morinth can be seen as a gay panic type of character, since apparently a lot of people do. But it's irrelevant. That kind of thing is problematic if you make your only gay character a serial killer, or your only black character a gangster, or your only hispanic character a drug runner. But in Mass Effect there's an entire species of omnisexual characters, some of whom are promiscuous, some of whom are soldiers like you'd see in any other species, some of them are part-monk part-Punisher. And in ME3 there are homo- or bisexual characters outside that species, and it can be presumed that there are the appropriate number more beyond them for whom it just never gets brought up. Out of all of those, one of them just happens to be a serial killer. Well, gay/bi/omnisexual people are as likely to be serial killers as anyone else. Morinth isn't the only such character, so I can't agree that Bioware shouldn't have written her, or should have written her in a different way, just because in a different context where she was the only character with her orientation it would have been offensive. And the Volus are Jewish? Why? Because they're short and associated with banking? That does not a Jewish stereotype make. Do they have stereotypical physical traits attributed to Jews, other than shortness? Probably not, though it's hard to tell. Do they have unusual speech? Maybe, if you count the rasping breath, but I wouldn't. Are they sneaky and untrustworthy? No more than any other species. Greedy? Not particularly. In fact, they're favored as financiers because they're very good and reliable at it. Nit-picky? No. Stingy? No. Scapegoats? No. Associated with the entertainment industry? No. Associated with legal professions? No. Secretly in control of the galaxy? No. (e: Though if the Shadow Broker had been a Volus instead of a Yahg, that would have been hilarious. And disappointing.) Presented negatively in general? No. The game treats them pretty neutrally for what they are. I don't see a problem here. e: And to make it clear, this is a list of stereotypes that I looked up on wikipedia. I don't actually believe any of this crap. Montegoraon fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Aug 7, 2014 |
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Aug 7, 2014 15:47
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Montegoraon posted:And the Volus are Jewish? Why? Because they're short and associated with banking? That does not a Jewish stereotype make. Whoa. Look at all this antisemitism here. Not okay. Mods?!
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Aug 7, 2014 15:55
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Pretty much every Volus you meet is a shady or/and greedy merchant. The one exception I can think of acknowledges that all his people are greedy bastards. ME1 had the shady banker you can call out on unethical practices. ME2 had the guy gloating over the destruction of colonies because it made him money, and the merchants involved in illegal operations during Samara's recruitment. In ME3 the sidequests with the Volus involved stopping them from war profiteering. Like were there some I missed that really break the picture there?
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Aug 7, 2014 16:05
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BioMe posted:Pretty much every Volus you meet is a shady or/and greedy merchant. The one exception I can think of acknowledges that all his people are greedy bastards.
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Aug 7, 2014 16:10
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Nihilarian posted:Excuse me, you forgot about the BIOTIC GOD, Niftu Cal. He was one of the merchants in Samara's recruitment mission, wasn't he? 
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Aug 7, 2014 16:12
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Lt. Danger posted:Whoa. Look at all this antisemitism here. Not okay. Now hold on. I was listing stereotypes. I had to look them up on wikipedia.
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Aug 7, 2014 16:26
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Montegoraon posted:Okay, so maybe Morinth can be seen as a gay panic type of character, since apparently a lot of people do. But it's irrelevant. That kind of thing is problematic if you make your only gay character a serial killer, or your only black character a gangster, or your only hispanic character a drug runner. But in Mass Effect there's an entire species of omnisexual characters, some of whom are promiscuous, some of whom are soldiers like you'd see in any other species, some of them are part-monk part-Punisher. And in ME3 there are homo- or bisexual characters outside that species, and it can be presumed that there are the appropriate number more beyond them for whom it just never gets brought up. Out of all of those, one of them just happens to be a serial killer. Well, gay/bi/omnisexual people are as likely to be serial killers as anyone else. Morinth isn't the only such character, so I can't agree that Bioware shouldn't have written her, or should have written her in a different way, just because in a different context where she was the only character with her orientation it would have been offensive. Again, nobody's saying the writers are trying to present some sort of thinly veiled gay panic propaganda. If Morinth were the only bi character it would be legitimately troubling, but as it is she's a bit on the nose and makes you laugh when you realize what they did. I think the writers basically got some wires tangled with the blue alien space babes, the vamp, and the AIDS allegory. If they ever noticed that they'd mixed up some things that they might not have wanted to mix it must have been too late to fix. It isn't until ME3 that they reveal there are a whole demographic of these people and that they're all in jail. To the writers' credit here, the player gets some limited opportunity to point how hosed up this is to the Asari. If it was treated as unproblematic, then it would be more than a little troubling. Still, the parallels between "the AY spectrum" as Liara puts it and AIDS couldn't be more obvious. Giving a space AIDS allegory to the blue space babes makes sense, but they might not have noticed they were giving it to the bisexual blue space babes. Giving the vamp to the blue space babes also makes sense, but they might not have noticed they were giving her to the bisexual space AIDS-having blue space babes. And Morinth happened.
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Aug 7, 2014 16:43
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Lt. Danger posted:Death of the author. Small tangent, but I find death of the author to be one of the most frustrating components of criticism. It seems like its sole function is to make the author less important than the critic reviewing their work, which suits every critic who invokes it.
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Aug 7, 2014 16:56
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A Curvy Goonette posted:Small tangent, but I find death of the author to be one of the most frustrating components of criticism. It seems like its sole function is to make the author less important than the critic reviewing their work, which suits every critic who invokes it. Death of the Author is unfortunately overused, especially by people who don't really understand it. It's not supposed to make the author not matter, it's meant to point out major differences between the stated intent and the content of the book. To use an extreme example, if someone writes a book that just says "kill all blacks" for 200 pages then says that it's actually about the price of tea in China then yeah, you call his bullshit. If you try to use death of the author to say that 1984 was actually a secret code predicting 9/11, then gently caress you, you're an idiot. Way too many people take it to mean "MY OPINION is the most important" when, no, it's not. Huckelberry Finn was not some statement on the Civil War, Mark Twain addressed this. The book has no meaning, and as the author, his point of view will always be the most important statement on the literature. Flytrap fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Aug 7, 2014 |
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Aug 7, 2014 17:03
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Again, I'm gonna suggest viability is a greater concern than validity. Topic for another video, though.
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Aug 7, 2014 17:12
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Arglebargle III posted:Well, you have to remember that not long ago, conflating homosexuality with pedophilia and sex crime was normal. There are still people who would respond to "well Ardat-Yakshi really are like that!" with "Gays really are like that too!" The difference is that the people saying that about Gay people are as objectively wrong as you can get in reality. I have never heard of a homosexual person who sucks the life force out of everyone they have sex with. Honestly I'm pretty sure Ardat-Yakshi are supposed to be Succubus\Vampire analogues because as we have already established the artists at Bioware are all horny sixteen year old males who are both simultaneously aroused and terrified by women and they just had to go there with their blue skinned space babes. The fact that they end up being unfortunately similar in concept to the same nonsense spouted by people who are afraid of 'the gay menace' is just that, unfortunate but not indicative of any statement about homosexuality. I feel that I should point out that the thing she does that kills everyone she snuggles with is only superficially similar to a sexually transmitted disease and is more analogous to a predatory attack mechanism. Arglebargle III posted:It isn't until ME3 that they reveal there are a whole demographic of these people and that they're all in jail. To the writers' credit here, the player gets some limited opportunity to point how hosed up this is to the Asari. If it was treated as unproblematic, then it would be more than a little troubling. An ongoing theme with the Asari is that their beauty really is only skin deep and that they're actually often pretty cold bitches, I think the reveal of the whole monastary-prison thing is intended to reinforce that. Although to be fair I'm not entirely sure what else you can do that isn't worse than imprisonment. Neruz fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Aug 7, 2014 |
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Aug 7, 2014 17:20
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