That would be hilarious. I now want the AAA game story of the "Big dick hero" mowing down all the "micro penis" enemies in an open world.
We can call the game "Size Matters".
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Rage 2 is a fun game that makes me feel like garbage - Polygon
- Thread starter TheHighMarshal
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We can call the game "Size Matters".
Yeah I was gonna add "it's not even a good example," but then I wasn't coming up with a better popular example. Obviously there are lots of excellent niche-ish examples but not really anything that's such a big brand. (Looking at you, Disney/Marvel).
However, my point stands that, especially in the Silmarillion, Tolkien points out over and over again that the good/beautiful guys are fixated on and easily misled by appearances, and the elves aren't really all that good historically. (When Sauron is deceiving the Elves into helping him make the ring, he poses as a pretty elf and they all magically love him). And the point I was trying to make was just that Tolkien is complicating the normal dynamic, especially in the book, not that the big Hollywood movie didn't cast pretty people. But I seem to have derailed this whole thread with a Tolkien fight so, sorry.
yes?
Yep. Pretty standard stuff. Stephen King's The Stand was basically the pretty people versus the ugly people.
I feel like the devs of Rage 2 could have at least partially sidestepped this issue by including heroic characters who are also mutants. There are friendly Ghouls in the Fallout games that make it clear that just being horribly irradiated doesn't make you a bad person.
That's right. Let's throw criticism of entertainment right out the window. What purpose could it possibly serve in the face of real life?
A rather awkward choice considering the representation of evil creatures in those books and the accusations of racism that their author faced and still faces for that.
Right, like I feel like it's so incredibly easy to do, and would only add thematically.
u good Mona no worries
What justification is there for mocking the author? It's something only shitty people would do.
It's really naive to think you can offer feedback to a game dev and kind of expect them to change it. I don't know, I feel like the tone of the article makes it seem like the author thinks the game is attacking him personally.
What? devs listen all the time what are you talking about?
The people mocking Plante for his experience seem to lack empathy. The whole "it doesn't bother me so it shouldn't bother you and you shouldn't talk about it" angle is sad. The dude's a writer who wrote about his experience, not someone trying to tear the industry down. He's suggesting ways to improve and make gaming more inclusive, and people shouting him down bum me out.
Yep, I think this would have been a more interesting solution than ignoring it and going for the more traditional good looking people versus flawed looking evil people.
Nobody is suggesting that the designs were intended to offend. Rather, they're an example of the ubiquitous trope that the good guys are pretty and the bad guys are ugly. Which reinforces certain societal attitudes towards real-life people who are less attractive.
But the problem isn't malice, it's just insensitive repetition of the stereotypes that we as a society should be trying to move past.
Definitely not gonna defend Easterlings &c., not the greatest stuff there. I feel obligated to post a link to good resources on racism in Tolkien. Not gonna fall into the "it's either perfect or terrible trap" rn though. Also, LOTR has, like many classic fantasy/SF books, somehow been appropriated by alt-right/fascist/etc. people when it's not intended to be read in a way that supports any of those values at all. But definitely I'm going to stop responding to OT Tolkien stuff here, this is a thread about Rage 2 and I was making one limited comparison.
Good resources on racism in Tolkien
User Banned (3 Days): Drive-By Trolling in a Sensitive Thread
Exactly.
Can't wait for the 6-10 youtube videos from the usual suspects going "SJW'S TRIGGERED BY RAGE 2"
I think this is a pretty fair take on how the game presents characters, but considering how try hard edgey and griffty the marketing for this game was... I am not exactly surprised the narrative isn't that deep/well thought out.
I think this is a pretty fair take on how the game presents characters, but considering how try hard edgey and griffty the marketing for this game was... I am not exactly surprised the narrative isn't that deep/well thought out.
It's important to remember that they're people too, and unless you think a sizable chunk of the population is genuinely shitty, they can come around and understand. Basically, they like the way things have been done, and rather than critically think about the problem, they get defensive. A lot of the time, they think they are critically thinking about the problem, but in reality they're trying to prove their assumption and the bias wins out. As someone who was there once, I can promise you it's not from a place of "fuck these people and their problems", but a genuine misunderstanding of how it's a problem. You may not convince them the first go around, defense mechanisms are a bitch, but giving up and calling them bad people will solidify their position.
Perhaps I'm a bit of an optimist though.
Regardless of the fact that I think this article is quite a stretch, I think it would be really cool if the protagonist and good guys were mutants as well.
I wouldn't have associated it either, but I also don't have a cleft lip. I can understand how someone with one might take this perspective, it's a not simple "outrage culture" thing when someone with a physical disability from birth is stating that a piece of media has issues with it. Their opinion and perspective is 100% valid even if it's not one I would have made.
The author of that piece is obviously completely entitled to his feelings, but when it comes to altering human forms, artists always run the risk of ending up with something that resembles a real birth defect or congenital condition or injury. There are just only so many ways you can change the physical characteristics of a person.
I agree with what's been said up-page, though: the inclusion of some friendly mutants feels like it could help mitigate this issue. But run too far with that idea and you risk entering a world where every bad guy with a missing limb needs a heroic counterpart with a missing limb, or an equivalent, and things start to look silly.
I agree with what's been said up-page, though: the inclusion of some friendly mutants feels like it could help mitigate this issue. But run too far with that idea and you risk entering a world where every bad guy with a missing limb needs a heroic counterpart with a missing limb, or an equivalent, and things start to look silly.
The difference here, unlike your other examples, is that cleft palate is something someone is born with, has no control over, and has no life events or participation of their own associated with its creation. How that is an "inspired" artistic decision design for the face of a mutant boils down to a rather odd artistic decision. While others with no experience with cleft palate may not see it in the design, It is totally fair game for someone to point this out.
The article doesn't even express outrage, but disappointment.
And they're not "cleft lip people", they're people.
*cue rainbow shooting star and music*
I dont know...mutated human monsters are a basic part of enemy designs especially in post apocalyptic games like this one is supposed to be. Saying its problematic because it somewhat is similar to a real world physical deficiency is strange.
Bloodborne wheelchair dudes are now problematic because they are mirroring people who are physically disabled in real life?
I am just having trouble parsing the concern.
Or, if you're really that uninterested with engaging with other people's thoughts, you could just, you know, move on with your life instead of complaining about other people's complaints.
It seems generally like it's a positive. One of the first steps towards changing something is pointing out why it should be changed. If people don't know that this kind of thing has the possibility to make people enjoy a game less, then it is just going to continue to happen. If reading this article results in you and other people noticing this stuff now, it could result in someone making another game or other piece of media down the road think "hey, maybe we can do this differently".
In that series, little people are evil. Even the good little person is maniacal (Tina).
Yeah, was the idea that we should just... never complain about anything? How is anything supposed to change if we can't point out why it's hurtful/wrong/bad?
That's... not quite how the story goes. In either the book or the film.
Frodo and Gollum fight over the ring and in the struggle Gollum falls into the volcano. He doesn't destroy the ring, he just wants it for himself. He's clutching that thing all the way down. His last word as he goes over is "precious".
I totally understand what you intend with this and don't disagree with that intent, but for the purposes of this discussion, "cleft lip people" seems to be a fair statement as it literally revolves around them as a collective. I really don't think anybody is going to group them together outside of this discussion.
Well I read the article and think it's ridiculous. Will you please engage with my thoughts?
None of your examples match here, they're all ridiculous.
Fact is, these conditions have been used as a template to conjure monstrous characters forever. They're almost never used in a positive light. That in itself is a problem that perpetuates people's view of actual, living people with genetic conditions.
To deny this is naive as hell.
The problem here is the frequency which these are used as a template to create monsters. That has a real world effect. Can't deny it.
So to write it off like you're doing is pretty ignorant.
Would be pretty damn cool to see a hero with a cleft lip palate at some point, and we can create monsters without using real world conditions as templates.
And while you might see this as stifling creativity somehow, removing that option of an actual condition that exists... we KNOW there is a huge imbalance with representation, so why add to it when you could easily imagine something else or even, as suggested, make a positive example with a hero character.
This isn't hard to see.
oh man I know I said I was gonna stop, but...
that's the POINT. Frodo was a good guy and STILL couldn't bring himself to destroy the Ring. The ring was only destroyed by accident, by someone everyone wrote off, with bad intentions, and that's what saved the day. NONE of the supposedly perfect heroes can ever give up the ring, except Sam when he gives it back to Frodo, and that's only because he didn't have it for that long. The day is saved, by accident, by the last person you would expect.
OP
OP
Considering how it's pretty much only the characters and NPCs with cleft paletes that are villains I'd say yeah, it's pretty dehumanizing.
In Bloodborne there are only a handful of enemies that are handicapped vs Rage 2 where a sizable chunk of the enemies seem to have some type of atypical body. Plus handicapped people are much more normalized in most places compared to people with cleft paletes.
Fallout is able to portray a multitude of villains without making half of them have cleft paletes. I don't see why Rage can't do the same.
What an inconsiderate comment. Maybe consider for a moment how others might feel.
Yeah lol not trying to say Gollum is somehow the big hero, but he is the one who destroys the ring and saves the day. I once again apologize for using an imperfect example, especially because the movie does so much worse than the book in the "good guys are all pretty / bad guys are not as pretty" category.
Right? Something like Mad Max (film series, didn't play the game) completely nails having a variety of baddies without demonizing any group of people in particular, especially given how kickass Fury Road was, so it's not like it's some special defense to be like "but it's a postapocalyptic game with mutants"
Pointing out that the game excessively uses a certain physical characteristic to codify evilness and how it affects you personally isn't "outrage" but I'm glad we got the thread shitting brigade all up in here being their usual dismissive selves.
I don't agree, but I won't mock the guy. I have an issue myself: dogs. Breaks my fucking heart when you have to hurt dogs in games, to the point once dropped a game when I accidentally spoiled myself about a minor scene where you had to put a dog down. Just makes me uncomfortable as all hell. I understand why devs use them though, and unless it borders on torture porn levels of pointless/tasteless I'll just avoid stuff that bothers me.
But while I don't agree with forcing devs to remove types of content that bothers certain people, I won't ever mock those people for feeling that way. I'm "one of them", after all.
But while I don't agree with forcing devs to remove types of content that bothers certain people, I won't ever mock those people for feeling that way. I'm "one of them", after all.
what's ridiculous about it? i was born with a cleft lip and palate but was fortunate enough to have received multiple reconstructive surgeries very early on such that you couldn't tell now. so it doesn't really affect me, but i can certainly empathize with how it might make someone feel who wasn't as born into a similar situation as i was and still has a visible cleft.