That's such a bullshit argument, what good is critique without effect? Oh wait, why not ask the UN?
And?
Nintendo Removes Controversial Fire Emblem Fates Conversation
- Thread starter Tom Nook Sawyer
- Start date
Crash Station
Member
It's not the statement as much as the tone, and this is a much nicer one, though it still does imply absolutes and has a hint of arrogance, but people would still be more likely to engage it without getting hotheaded.
I would say FF's localization change was NOT justified at all, but as you said, not the thread for that.
Anyway, judging on a case by case thing still assigns an objective value to something that is not objective. This is actually one of the very few instances where I think whataboutisms are a valid talking point, as this is a medium that has a history of being pushed for change on the "lacking artistic value" front. You won't find as many people these days campaigning for the censorship of glorified and even fetishized context-less violence that is prevalent in some games, but you do see it for things that, when analyzed from afar, share the same level of artistic value (or lack of it). It's not about normalizing deviant behavior or viewpoints, it's about keeping a consistent principle that the medium has come under fire for several times already.
I'm saying that it's stupid to propose criticism and condemn its effect. "Leave it be, let it get criticised a bit more."
Yeah, see, that is just irrational.
Crash Station
Member
R_thanatos
Member
Hum ... unrealistic expectations...
It's not even that this change was made in response to a fan uproar. It is being made because the localizers looked at the scene and said "Whoa, yeah this has problems." That's just good editing. So at this point saying criticism shouldn't be taken into account is either addressing a hypothetical or pretty much just applies to future entries and if that's not allowed, let's bring back Jar Jar in Episode VIII.
I found some updates, the script is done, but the original programmer for the project left a while back. And they recently got someone else to help in November.
Oh, nice, I hadn't heard they'd got a new programmer!
KirbYuuYuu
Member
I'm a bit puzzled since Nintendo sent out a statement about it.
Because there were some reports/reactions on it after the release in Japan.
KirbYuuYuu
Member
SolarMystic
Banned
I don't really care one way or the other, as it isn't really a controversial scene once we realize whats happening, but it can seem bad at face value.
Though, holy shit at the IGN comments on their article. Sometimes I forget just how progressive and open minded Gaf is compared to a lot of the industry.
Though, holy shit at the IGN comments on their article. Sometimes I forget just how progressive and open minded Gaf is compared to a lot of the industry.
Yes. The author of the NWR article spoke on /r/fireemblem and said he did reach out to Nintendo about it.
Weltall Zero
Member
Controversial as this post might be, I 100% agree. I've once too many heard the argument that it's not homophobia if the author means no ill will to homosexuals. If society is to move on, at some point we have to stop tiptoeing, address unconscious prejudice and make people aware of theirs.
And that includes me, hence my previous plea for more inclusive media, for my own benefit and enlightment.
Sephiroth_VII
Member
Seeing as homophobia literally means "fear of the same", or in modern contexts "fear of gay people", I find it hard to see this as homophobia. Is it condescending and hurtful? Yes. I still don't think it should be censored.
How about this: If the publishers don't want to release a condescending and hurtful product, would editing out a scene that is nothing but that be a good idea? Or should they throw out the game entirely?
If the "developer's original intent" is obnoxious and hurtful, I'm okay with that, personally.
Parsing out the literal meaning of "homophobia" from the latin doesn't actually tell you what it means. "homophobia" is effectively the equivalent of "racism", both can refer to explicit hateful thoughts or actions, or more wide spread but less overt societal and social norms.
So yes, this conversation is homophobic, and to claim it isn't because its not literally "Fear of the same" is to completely ignore how language works.
dude man this is like saying hiring 99 white peeps for 1 black person cos them 99 peeps got the job skills ain't racism cos no hate's involved. you gotta look at the wider context of things.
Technoweirdo
Member
Are you -really- going to argue that date rape allusions were intended? I'm assuming no.
What -was- intended was a funny scene involving Soleil looking at Male Corrin as if he were a woman. Unfortunately, the method used didn't make things funny for some people because authors aren't perfect and miss the mark somtimes. I mean, I'm sure Lucas intended to make Star Wars I - III good movies, but he's not perfect and is still getting shit over a decade later for it.
A simple change of method -- say, Male Corrin cross-dressing and actually appearing as a woman on-screen for example -- preserves the scene more than perfectly, it's actually funnier for some people.
LordOcidax
Member
Good for Nintendo IMO
That raises all sorts of other issues.
Also the actual fix would have been to NOT WRITE SOLEIL AS A LESBIAN IF THEY WEREN'T GOING TO GIVE HER FEMALE ROMANCES
Everything stems from that bad decision. There was no reason her character needed to be that way, but when they decided that "comedy lesbian who will only fuck dudes" was her personality, then it was essentially inevitable we'd end up here one way or another.
Now, they also made another EVEN WORSE decision when writing the Male MC romance, which just made it blatantly obvious how bad it was.
Trying to find ways to "fix" this specific conversation ignores the larger problem present in the very concept of Soleil's character.
Yes. Basically the exact same objections to Soleil in general and her support with the male MC in particular. Also complaints about Shara and Zero being kinda gross stereotypes as well
http://feifgannbare.jimdo.com/同性婚システムの問題点/
Like all female units she can support with basically all male units.
Despite her personality, she cannot support with any female units.
Intetesting.
Its seems the developers were tone deaf even to their home audience.
I just read her supports. Oh my god, my sides... she can romantically support with all of the male kids and male MC when even those supports seem to revolve around her liking girls... somehow.
Prax
Member
It's not an expectation, just my deep desire for this series. lol
Getting this shonen manga writer to deal with romance and relationships with a very female-loaded cast was.. not a great idea. lol They should perhaps.. keep the writing in-house next time.
I think if the game focused a lot more on the "bonds of friendship" instead of "every opposite-sex pairing turns into marriage", it would have turned out a lot better.
Paracelsus
Member
Ultimately though, due to how her support links are structured, isn't the removal pretty much her lesbian attitude being obliterated?
I mean, remove the drugs, how does it become? Hey Corrin, I need help. I am floored by cute gir—
Nvm I love you Corrin [THE END]
I mean, remove the drugs, how does it become? Hey Corrin, I need help. I am floored by cute gir—
Nvm I love you Corrin [THE END]
The idea of unconscious bias being morally reprehensible flies in the face of many philosophical schools of thought. It also agrees with others.
When it comes down to it some people believe that the conscious intent of an action is more important than what someone believes the intent to be, unconscious or otherwise.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
...what?
Uhhh...if there is no highly compelling reason to do so, then yeah, it is wrong.
Are you writing a story about slavery in the Antebellum South? Yeah, its ok to have characters say horrible, racist things
Are you writing a story about the Ku Klux Klan? Then yeah, characters will say racist, horrible things
However, writing a fantasy videogame that takes place in an entirely different world? And then end up writing gross stereotypes as queer characters? Yes, you can and should get called out on that.
Do I need to explain why the "Comedy Lesbian" character is bad and harmful? Because a lot of people don't seem to be grasping the core problem with Soleil as written, and just focusing on the one support conversation as if it were the only issue at hand.
Actually, yes.
If a Fire Emblem fan purchased this game only to witness a scene that was condescending and mean to who they are for no reason then it deserves to be removed. How the developers didn't remove it from the original release is a mystery to me. Though I have noticed with other Japanese games like Persona homophobia has been called out before.
Being hurtful, by casual ignorance or willfully writing a hate scene, is still wrong whatever the context.
Ok, comedy lesbians are a type of character that shows up a lot in anime/Visual Novels/Light Novels/games etc (I have seen a few in western works, but I'm gonna focus on the Japanese side). There are several variations on the concept but the key elements are as follows.
First, they are always a secondary or tertiary character, if part of the main cast they will usually get the least amount of focus.
Second, their entire personality revolves around "liking girls". Sometimes this is just any girl who's attractive or cute enough (like Soleil) or sometimes it will be one specific girl that they focus all their energy on.
Third, their feelings aren't reciprocated. This itself isn't an issue, but it is in concert with the next point
Fourth, their feelings aren't treated as being "real" or "serious" by the other characters or the author/writers. They frequently get dismissed as being childish, are told to grow up and get over these silly infatuations, and often explicitly are told they need to find a man.
Fifth, these characters are often over-aggressive to the point of actively molesting other girls (breast groping in the bath, etc) and older versions of this type of character often come off as explicitly predatory and rapey.
Sixth, they never get a girlfriend. The story will either end with their feelings explicitly rejected or they will be paired up with a male character who effectively "cures" them. this is most common in Visual Novels, when the character has a route with the MC and very often he will literally fuck the gay out of her.
Perhaps the most well known of this sort of character is Shirai Kuroko from the "A Certain Magical Index" and "A Certain Scientific Railgun" series. She tics off a lot of these ponits. She's hyper-aggressive and almost rapey to the object of her affection, her feelings aren't treated as being serious by other characters or the writer. Despite her being a powerful teleporter, she's frequently undermined by the story, often using her crush on Mikoto to do so.
Soleil hits almost all of these points. She's actually almost the perfect example of a Comedy Lesbian.
So, why is this bad? Can lesbians not be in comedies or used for jokes? Not at all. This is a problem because it reinforces the idea that a girl loving girls isn't "real" love. That its a childish phase they will grow out of, or for older ones, a threatening figure that will assault and defile "proper" straight girls. Much the same way that a stereotypical flamboyant gay male depiction is frowned upon due to negative stereotypes, the Comedy Lesbian is effectively that trope, but for girls.
Now, its entirely possible to do comedy with lesbian characters. The key is the punchline should never be "Ha ha she likes girls isn't that ridiculous!" which is, ultimately, what Soleil's character boils down to. And in fact several posters here have said that. Asking why we're getting upset over a clearly comedic character and we shouldn't be taking it so seriously.
A girl liking girls should not be funny. Is the idea of boy liking girls funny? Is that ever a punchline? of course not, because its seen as normal and expected. There are plenty of jokes you can make out of a boy liking girls, through his actions or his words or situations he finds himself in.
The same thing can be done with lesbians. There is an anime, "Yuruyuri", its title can be translated (with some versimilitude) as "Lazy Lesbians". Its all about a group of girls who like girls. But thats not the joke. The fact that they are lesbians isn't ever explicitly commented on or used as a punchline. The jokes all come from how they deal with their budding feelings and how ridiculous love can make people act.
By making Soleil's attraction to women a joke, and giving her only male partners to marry, they effectively are saying homosexual attraction is improper and wrong, and needs to be fixed. This is not something that the writers explicitly set out to do, but its a result of a mindset that doesn't really take the idea of homosexuality seriously as anything but a weird personality quirk.
I hope this helps explain the fundamental flaw in how Soleil was written from the beginning, and how the support with the Male MC is a symptom of the problem, not the problem in and of itself.
It's literally gay conversion. How do you people not get how utterly offensive and gross that is?
....This is the weirdest defense for a game having gay conversion that I've ever seen. You deny what's happening in it, that gay conversion is somehow funny and then extrapolate that if he were to cross-dress it would be better somehow? Now you're just making trans people the butt of the joke or? I know that he's not being or expressing anything trans by cross-dressing alone and I don't believe you are intending that either. (as there's far more involvement of the whole being than that with the trans identity). But people often conflate the two in order to demean transgender people.....a lot. Those kinds of 'jokes' are used all the time against us and I'm really tired of it and I can only see that happening if that road were taken.
Really, the whole way her character was handled is just a straight up mess. I have no clue how the localization team is going to handle it.
I just want you to know that I read what you wrote and I understand more what you and some others mean. You're tired of the trope whereas someone like me will see it a few times a year in my anime watching or jRPG and I'll immedietely dismiss it because ( almost ) every side character is a thinly written trope of one kind or another.
'The key is the punchline should never be "Ha ha she likes girls isn't that ridiculous!" '
But this I disagree completely with. Comedy can and should be whatever it wants to be. Maybe you don't find it funny or even find it offensive personally but that's where it should end.
'The key is the punchline should never be "Ha ha she likes girls isn't that ridiculous!" '
But this I disagree completely with. Comedy can and should be whatever it wants to be. Maybe you don't find it funny or even find it offensive personally but that's where it should end.
Art doesn't offend me and people saying 'this shouldn't be allowed' personally offend me. What don't you understand?
psynergylover
Member
that's....weird....to say the least....
Glad to know you think gay conversion is a good thing and somehow comedy? Glad to know you also sincerely think moronic assholes aren't influenced by their environment to be moronic assholes particularly when 'jokes' like this work at the expense of others? Like really, you're arguing that a punchline that doesn't personally affect you is fine even if it grossly marginalizes numerous other people. People like you who despise critique and try to silence other people's voices are what's really odd to me. Critique is a natural part of art. If you don't like that, that's your issue. But it's within art all the time, always has been.
Steve Youngblood
Member
Yeah. The more I read into this the more I'm convinced that this isn't a situation where any sort of negative commentary against homosexuals was intended. Mind you, I completely understand that some people are going to take offense to this character's portrayal. But even more than that I just feel like they're aiming at some sort of comedy that is just largely incomprehensible.
If I'm the localization team, even if I was the type of person to say "enough with this politically correct bullshit!" (and I'm not), I feel like you'd still have to look at this and surmise that whatever the intentions were are either fundamentally flawed right out of the gate, or are simply something that isn't going to translate to a Western audience. I've listened to the arguments. I'm not trying to be obtuse or disingenuous, and I've tried not to attack it from a progressive angle. I've argued this several times: I'm honestly not sure what they're trying to accomplish with the character. The most generous conclusion I've reached is that it's a bizarrely stupid attempt at comedy that doesn't come close to landing.
It is not. She's the same half-assed
Weltall Zero
Member
But of course! I never said it was morally reprehensive: in fact, I said precisely the opposite in the previous page of this very thread (bolded for emphasis):
The very post you quoted ends by admitting nobody, including myself, is free from subconscious bias, misconceptions and prejudice, which is why is so important to make people think about all of them. If I were postulating that unconscious bias is morally reprehensive I would be reprehending myself.
That said, at some point we have to move past assigning blame and start moving to improve each other and ourselves. And this can't be done without making people aware of their bias.