We’ve come to an important plot point in the game, and I want to discuss it before going further.
In this upcoming quest, it is revealed that female shra do exist – they’re just locked up in an isolated area and forced not only to breed continuously, but also to give up their children afterward. They cannot leave, ever. If they break any of these rules, they are killed. It sounds like something out of Wither, and it’s quickly swept under the rug and forgotten about after being brought up once. This is because there is no logical reason for shra society to be structured this way, and it provides no contribution to the plot. Yet the developer still decided that it was an idea worth including.
Here is the setup:
Skint: “That is… a Fem-Shra. A female. She must be what the natives are seeking. […] It is forbidden for Fem-Shra to go out. They’ll probably kill her.”
So, right off the bat, we’re off to a bad start: The females get a weird, special name, because women are magical fairy people, and they’re sentenced to death for escaping their confinement.
Later, Skint leads the group to a massive shra fortress with exits/entrances known only to its inhabitants.
Ques: “There must be a self-sufficient colony inside. And, the females… I understand now.”
Lani: “Great, so it’s a buncha lizards breedin’ their brains out.”
…
This is the great reason for denying half the population representation in the game’s special fantasy race. This. The women had to be reduced to their most basic biological purpose and crammed into an area outside the story to fulfill it. It’s something straight out of Wither – you could even make a claim that it’s worse. Wither portrayed pretty much the same situation, but at least there the women were allowed to be onscreen. Here, the systemic captivity, abuse, and almost certainly rape of the entire female half of the population is a footnote. Video games have never been great towards women, but I have never seen anything like this. This is a new low for me.
There’s probably some plot reason for this, somewhere, in the grand scheme of things. I don’t care. Disgusting, regressive messages and elements can have the most technically sound arguments behind them, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are toxic and repulsive and should not be perpetuated. Whatever clever idea the developer had that he thought justified this, he should have scrapped it and started anew. Nothing justifies this.
And just in case you thought that maybe, just maybe, the females have some say in this and might be okay with it, there’s this:
Moke goes on to theorize the female is experiencing separation anxiety, and is trying to recover her child. So, not only are women reduced to portable uteruses, they aren’t even allowed to share in the benefits; their babies are torn from their arms and they can’t do anything to stop it. They get nothing but misery out of this.
The only thing that could possibly fix this is if the shra capital is retconned to be a matriarchy where the females purposefully make all these decisions themselves, and the one distressed female we see here is not representative of the general population. If there is some difficult decision in a society that heavily revolves around a certain group, that group deserves the autonomy to make that decision. Even if the next game goes into exquisite detail about how this is an awful, disgusting system that needs to be destroyed, I won’t find that acceptable – because it’s already been done. Over and over and over I see “fantasy” stories, stories supposedly bound only by our imaginations, stories of triumph and escape and heroism, where oppressive patriarchy is the norm. I’ve seen it in misogynist literature, I’ve seen it in neutral literature, I’ve seen it in feminist literature. The trope is everywhere and it sends a clear message: the oppression of women is simply the natural state of things. Even if it doesn’t intend to be misogynistic, that message makes it seem like there is no point to feminism because the moment you stop fighting, everything will snap back, like a rubber band. It’s tiring, it’s depressing, and it’s false. For most women, the simple right of equal treatment is still a fantasy. At the very least, it shouldn’t be a fantasy even in fantasy.
For all the people who say that men have it just as bad, that feminists are blowing things out of proportion, that media representation doesn’t matter: This. This is why feminism is important. I’ve never seen a gender-flipped variant of this and if anything like it exists, I highly doubt it even approaches this level of maginalization. What does this say about our culture, that it’s apparently fine to not only cut women out of a story completely but reduce them to rape victims valued only for their uteruses? That this is portrayed as a totally normal background element that brooks no further discussion or analysis? That people are willing to so blatantly ignore this and praise the game as the best thing since sliced bread anyway? It’s not okay, and it’s not acceptable.
It makes me uncomfortable that I was willing to gloss over this too when I played the game so many years ago, and it’s uncomfortable being forced to revisit it now. I want to believe there is no malice or active misogyny here, just thoughtlessness – the next game in the series is certainly much, much better when it comes to female characters, so the creator is definitely capable of improvement – but no matter what, it’s horrifying. I can easily see this being a ragequit moment for a lot of people.
I’ll return to your regular scheduled plot critique next week, but I had to get this off my chest first. This is an ugly, ugly aspect of the game that gives everything else a bitter aftertaste.
“Even if the next game goes into exquisite detail about how this is an awful, disgusting system that needs to be destroyed, I won’t find that acceptable – because it’s already been done.”
Hm. But fantasy is also a way to address issues with the real world – a way to teach that “dragons can be defeated”, to paraphrase G. K. Chesterton. In that regard, why would it be bad to write a story about something like that just because it’s been done before? If it’s been done before, and yet it keeps being done, doesn’t that mean the underlying issues that inspire such stories still exist?
Mind you, from what you’re saying, this game doesn’t actually address the issue at all, which is awful – it means someone honestly thought women being imprisoned in rape camps is just window dressing. But aren’t you going too far by saying that it can’t be done at all?
Quoting myself:
because it’s already been done. Over and over and over I see “fantasy” stories, stories supposedly bound only by our imaginations, stories of triumph and escape and heroism, where oppressive patriarchy is the norm. […] The trope is everywhere and it sends a clear message: the oppression of women is simply the natural state of things. Even if it doesn’t intend to be misogynistic, that message makes it seem like there is no point to feminism because the moment you stop fighting, everything will snap back, like a rubber band.
It’s sort of like what Farla was saying in Allegiant about gay couples always being miserable in every universe. When all you ever see of [minority X] in media is oppression forever, it makes it look like it’s impossible for it to be otherwise, that oppression is just the natural state of things now and forever. It demonstrates a lack of creativity on the authors’ parts, that they apparently can’t comprehend a world where the oppression isn’t a thing, and even if it’s to show the oppression is wrong, it’s disheartening to always show it as something that must be fought tooth and nail for all eternity. Many, many stories have already done the “defeating the dragon” thing and that’s important too, but simple egalitarian or matriarchial escapist fantasies are nearly nonexistent. I think that in the twenty-first century, women deserve a bit more variety at the very least.
There’s also the fact that this particular instance doesn’t really have much bearing on real-life feminist issues. It’s just so extreme as to be absurd. Maybe something similar is happening in some countries, I don’t know, but to a first world audience all it can possibly say is putting women in rape camps is bad and yeah, no duh? Making it a matriarchy is really the only interesting direction this could go in. Especially for a story that prides itself on being ~subversive~, having it go such a cliched route would hurt the story in my mind, even ignoring the social issues.
” I think that in the twenty-first century, women deserve a bit more variety at the very least.”
Too true.
“There’s also the fact that this particular instance doesn’t really have much bearing on real-life feminist issues. It’s just so extreme as to be absurd. Maybe something similar is happening in some countries, I don’t know, but to a first world audience all it can possibly say is putting women in rape camps is bad and yeah, no duh?”
Aside from the fact that there’s a whole wide world out there, including countries where sadly stuff similar to this does happen and hey, wouldn’t it be nice, if the people who think “putting women in rape camps is bad and yeah, no duh?” paid more attention to the world outside their window, fantasy works as an allegory to the real world, not necessarily a direct parallel. Orcs don’t exist in real life, but they can still be symbolic of a great number of things – systematic brutality, unrestrained violence and greed, and so on and so forth.
Mind you, I’m not arguing for this game specifically. I’m arguing for the general idea. :-)
Aside from the fact that there’s a whole wide world out there, including countries where sadly stuff similar to this does happen and hey, wouldn’t it be nice, if the people who think “putting women in rape camps is bad and yeah, no duh?” paid more attention to the world outside their window
But the target audience does need to be taken into consideration. The fact remains that this was made by an American for an American audience, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to judge the work by American standards. Under that purview, unless the message is indeed “hey, some people really do think like this, pay attention to the world outside your window” it’s going to fall pretty flat.
You ever read the webcomic Dumbing of Age? There’s a character who’s strongly affected by racism, but it’s not the kind of extreme white supremacist racism most people are familiar with, it’s more subtle things like her parents ignoring and dismissing her when she acts stereotypically “black” even though she prefers to act that way. The author explains this choice by saying that the former brand of “cartoon villainy” racism is easy to set oneself apart from and say “See? I recognize this is wrong, that means I’m not racist!” There are real people who act in those extreme ways, but far more engage in subtle predjudices only. If you want to really challenge your audience to examine themselves and be better people, that’s a better avenue to explore.
…Sorry if that was jumbled, this post probably explains it better.
I think a similar case can be made here. A lot of people are pretty quick to recognize rape camps as bad, even if they may still be misogynist in other, less overt ways. It’s also simply retreading old ground – “Hey, don’t treat women like portable uteruses” is a message that’s been going around for a long time. Jumping on the bandwagon to agree that yes, this thing people have been saying for ages is wrong is indeed wrong is pretty trite. Artists are supposed to be creative, and I believe that creativity should be extended to tackling current issues in new and thoughtful manners.
“But the target audience does need to be taken into consideration. The
fact remains that this was made by an American for an American audience,
so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to judge the work by American
standards.”
Again, I’m not arguing for this specific game – or any specific work. I’m arguing against the general idea that something like this can’t ever be done well.
I do know of “Dumbing of Age” and I do read it occasionally, so I know what characters you’re referencing. But here’s the thing: the “cartoon villainy” Willis mentions is not so much “cartoon villainy” as it is “an extreme form of prejudice that DOES happen in the real-world”. Yeah, it would be awesome if it truly was something only Saturday morning cartoon villains did, but unfortunately, it isn’t; and until then, I don’t see why we can’t have works of art also dealing with those issues.
Besides, it’s not as if some excellent authors haven’t used caricature to talk about insidious real-life issues. Heck, that’s one of the mainstays of good comedy – see nearly anything by Charlie Caplin, for example.
Again, I’m not arguing for this specific game – or any specific work. I’m arguing against the general idea that something like this can’t ever be done well.
Oh, well in that case yes, this can be done well and has been done well. But it clearly hasn’t been perfect given that there are still people who won’t listen to the messages and who refuse to even question their beliefs or behavior, so I think it might be productive to try a different approach. The fundamental objective of such a technique should be to convince people to see themselves and the world differently; if you can do that, your audience will go on to make the world a better place large and small, regardless of the severity of the message’s content.
I think it comes down to a matter of scope (and here I thought we were done talking about The Reconstruction, ha): Know your audience. People are lazy. Most Americans know of the atrocities going on in other countries and their own, but they are either unable or unwilling to do anything about it. Pointing to the most extreme examples that people already know about isn’t going to change those examples in real life or peoples’ behavior unless they are indeed severely behind the times. So, Willis can’t stop Klan members from lynching people and stuff, but he can make people question and change some of the little racisms they make every day, which can make the world a slightly better place for some people. It could even lead to them taking a more active role in fighting racism elsewhere, though that is optimistic.
Granted I’m no expert on this, I’m just musing based on what I’ve seen. I guess what it comes down to is that there are places for both approaches, but I don’t feel extremity is necessary or useful in this instance.
” I guess what it comes down to is that there are places for both
approaches, but I don’t feel extremity is necessary or useful in this
instance.”
Fair enough. :-)
But here’s the thing: the “cartoon villainy” Willis mentions is not so much “cartoon villainy” as it is “an extreme form of prejudice that DOES happen in the real-world”.
Yes, but it’s not useful to show. Its overuse as the ONLY FORM OF RACISM EVAR has left some people thinking anything short doesn’t count as racism and others thinking that it actually is something only cartoon villains do to be labeled evil. Not to mention it’s already everywhere, so you’re really not saying anything by showing it yet again – which contributes to the first two issues.
Finally – no one who’s actually that racist is going to care you depicted it as wrong, because they already know other people think it’s wrong, and no one who isn’t that racist is going to need to be told it’s wrong.
At this point, the most useful depictions of cartoon villain level racism are in a serious work trying to combat the first two misunderstandings, and when that’s the use you can get out of something, it’s probably time to seriously consider if it’s any good at all.
I’d say caricature in general can still be used to great effect, particularly in comedy. Remember Chaplin’s “Modern Times”? It provided a cartoonish view of employer-employee work relations, but isn’t it still effective to this day about how powerless workers are before the managers / executives / owners?
Here in Brazil, we’ve recently had bouts of vigilantism: people are so distrustful of the government and the police (sadly, with good reason), that when a group started going around beating up small-time criminals and leaving them chained to lamposts, many (possibly the majority) cheered them on.
Leaving aside all other discussions of Justice vs. vengeance, the people’s right to meting out justice when the State is incapable of doing so vs. preservation of the law and the social contracts, and many others, do you know two things all those criminals that were beaten up (even lynched) had in common? All of them were poor, and none of them were white. If they had been white and middle class, would they still have been beaten up? And would so many of the general populace still have cheered for the vigilantes?
It’s true that there are many forms of racism and sexism, and that most of them are so deeply ingrained most racists and mysoginists don’t even realize what they are. But I think contrasting violent forms of prejudice with the more insidious ones can be done well enough in stories that we shouldn’t just discard those tropes out of hand.
That said, I’m arguing for the general concept, and as I’ve recently realized, talking solely in abstracts isn’t too useful. Based on this review, this game didn’t use those tropes in a good manner; and for all that I’m not a fan of his work, Willis at least does that well enough.
Y’know, on my first playthrough, I thought Dehl was female herself, and that we were SO going to break into that city and deal some JUSTICE!
…It wasn’t meant to be.
I did enjoy this game very much, and think it has a lot of super interesting things going for it, but its treatment of female characters is not one of the things I’d recommend it for….
That would have been great. Next game, maybe?
I did enjoy this game very much, and think it has a lot of super interesting things going for it, but its treatment of female characters is not one of the things I’d recommend it for….
Yeah.
In fairness the developer’s gotten much better about it if I Miss the Sunrise is anything to go by, but this is still a major WTF moment. I really, really want to know what in the world he was thinking.
One question…where in the story was it ever confirmed that the Shra capital is a giant rape camp? The only hard fact we’re ever given is that all the Shra females live there…everything else is all speculation by characters who haven’t been inside since they were infants. Skint speaks like he knows what he’s talking about, but admits he doesn’t actually know what’s inside either. The one female we see remains a complete mystery; she never confirms that she’s outside the walls because she misses her child(ren), the others just make this assumption. The mysterious mages who try to recruit Moke are the only nearly-confirmed (they could just be crazies living in the woods around it) inhabitants of the city that we see, and they wear long, possibly gender-concealing robes at all times. Maybe this is a stretch, but given the stated goal of subverting expectations and the fact that virtually everything we’re told about the capital is ultimately pure speculation, is the matriarchy idea really so far-fetched? It doesn’t even need to be retconned, because we’ve never seen any hard evidence that it isn’t a matriarchy. Granted, it seems a bit odd that this never comes up again, but the whole Shra capital ends up feeling like a dangling plot thread for the sequel to pick up, so maybe the writer is just cackling in the corner watching everyone jump to the wrong conclusions…
If it’s a matriarchy why are the women the ones who have to stay hidden and abide by extremely stringent laws? Why is the one woman we see relentlessly hunted by the men? And though the specific reason for her distress could be wrong, she is clearly distressed. None of this paints a very favorable picture, especially since the rest of the game shows that the dev doesn’t seem to care much at all about the role of women in the story. There’s ambiguity but I don’t see any reason to doubt the information we’re given, if for no other reason that it would be incredibly weird narratively after how dramatic this reveal is formatted. I’d like for there to be another explanation than rape camps but I just can’t see one.
I think the key here lies in your second question. She is being hunted by the men because, as we see when Moke defends her, they are a primitive Tu’Nuok warrior tribe that lives in the jungle around the city…they are not city guards coming to kill her or drag her back for breaking the law. No one from the city ever appears to either condemn or condone her behavior, which could either mean she really did sneak out, or that people in the city are free to leave any time and most simply choose not to leave their nice, safe, technologically advanced city to mingle with the primitive hunters who want to kill them. In fact, given that the only other thing we know for certain about the city is that they routinely abandon male infants outside the walls, the possibility exists that this city is a complete inversion, with the females ruling everything and tossing out all but a small number of males, who are kept enslaved for ‘breeding purposes’. Obviously, this is pure speculation and quite likely to be false, but it actually fits our only two facts (ie. all females live in the city, and a large number of exclusively male infants are tossed out to fend for themselves) better than most theories. As for how this fits with the rest of the story…was it really such a big dramatic reveal when the existence of the city and the theory that all Shra females live there was available in the glossary from the start of the game? Also, while the role of women in the game obviously leaves a lot to be desired, I don’t entirely agree with the idea that the dev doesn’t care about them. Virtually all of the sexist aspects of the game fall into the more ‘casual’ style of sexism; repeating common tropes, themes and stereotypes, but without any sort of active hostility. I’m not saying that makes it better; in a lot of ways, it’s worse, since it’s more insidious, but it’s also exactly what you would expect to see from someone who was raised in that sort of culture and never had cause to think too deeply about sexism in general…which probably describes a depressingly large percentage of the American male population. It’s also noteworthy that whenever the dev has the opportunity to directly condemn a female character for something, he chooses not to (ie. never slutshaming Kidra). Taken together, it seems more like the dev does care about the role of female characters, but is simply unaware of the more subtle sexist themes he’s perpetuating. Again, I’m not saying that makes it all okay, but I do think it eliminates any barriers the dev might have to the idea of the Shra city being matriarchal.
I reiterate my stance that even if there’s a reason for this, nothing justifies removing women from the story like this. If it really was supposed to be a matriarchy all along that rings pretty hollow. Even if the women are living lives of joy and splendor, this plot point still prevents them from participating in the story and that’s a more important measure of feminism, I think.
And I see no reason to believe Skint is an unreliable narrator here. True, the question of how he knows all this when he hasn’t entered the city isn’t answered, but that seems more like a plot hole to me given that no one calls him out on it.
Just to be clear, I’m not trying to attribute any kind of positive feminist message to this game, and I’m in full agreement that the consistent marginalization of female characters and perpetuation of stereotypes is more than a little sexist. I also recognize there’s a distinct possibility that the capital really is that bad, but I don’t believe it’s fair to condemn the game for something that might not even be true. To address some of the other comments here….yes, I’m quite confident patriarchal societies that practice infanticide do indeed have individual cases where the children are torn from their sobbing fathers…I think something that extreme starts to fall under basic human nature. I’d also note that it is stated more than once that the Shra capital is entirely self-sufficient, so even if that isn’t viable in the real world, it seems to be the case in the game world. Taking that a little further, this game kind of gives the impression it’s the end result of throwing together a lot of ‘cool ideas’, many of which were never fully thought out or realistically possible (ie. almost anything about Fortifel). As for Skint…he’s probably the least reliable narrator in the game, as he gleefully misleads the others on one thing or another every time he appears, often for no apparent reason beyond being a jerk. However, even if he’s right this time, and it really is ‘forbidden’ for females to leave the city, that still doesn’t really tell us anything. So far I’ve just been talking about possibilities, but if you’re interested in a full-fledged theory, how about this?
The Shra capital is a technologically advanced false utopia with a corrupt ruling council that believes the ends justify the means. The society itself is almost exclusively female, with the majority of male infants abandoned outside the walls, and the remainder kept as literal slaves for breeding and the few jobs that can’t be done by machines. Not everyone is happy about this, and there is some protest or even a full resistance movement, but they’re mostly marginalized by propaganda. Whenever discontent starts to take root, the council trot out the ‘murderous savages outside the walls’ as a convenient and unifying straw-man, and everyone is forbidden from leaving ‘for their own good’. Oh, and the council probably has the last emitter which is unaccounted for at the end of the game.
Now, I just made this up, and it’s more than likely complete nonsense, but it does fit the few facts we have. Of course, the rape camp theory also fits those facts, and if that does turn out to be the reality, then yes, I agree with everything you’ve said here. I also tend to agree that whatever the truth may be, it doesn’t justify completely excluding female Shra from the game, and I’m not saying that everything would be okay if it does turn out to be a matriarchy, I’m just uncomfortable with condemning something that might not actually be there.
Changing the subject a bit, I’d just like to say that I’ve been really enjoying your review, and it’s also refreshing to be able to have an actual conversation about this sort of thing. So…thanks! And please keep up the good work :)
It is forbidden for Fem-Shra to go out.
The only way this fits with matriarchy is if the city is under perpetual siege by the patriarchal tribes beyond, at which point we’re still back to the patriarchy calling the shots.
Furthermore…patriarchal cultures that practice infanticide do not have the children torn from their sobbing fathers. If it’s a matriarchy, the women should be in control of which children leave and when it happens, yet the plot of this revolves around a mother so distressed she faces almost certain death just to see her child again. And if it’s a “matriarchy” only in the sense that technically whatever ruler is involved is female but doesn’t offer any care or consideration to the other females, then it’s still a world that’s preferentially fucking over women.
The best that can be said at this point is that it’s probably not intended as a rape camp, but it totally is a rape camp because cities aren’t self-sufficient. There must be a flow of goods into the city to maintain the population, which in turn means the people inside the city have to justify their existence some other way than farming to the people outside the city, and given that every female shra is packed in there like cordwood, that justification is going to be babies. What happens if a female shra doesn’t want to have babies? She can’t leave and do anything else, and there’s no lack of people to do whatever few actual jobs might exist in the city, so she’d just be absorbing resources without producing anything. The fact the one female shra we see is distraught over losing her child when she knew this would happen if she had a kid at all also sounds like they have no choice.
Ultimately, the designer was probably just thinking it’d be clever to write the women out of the game and make them mysterious, because human culture doesn’t have all-female cities so it’s different. But the result goes a lot farther than subtle sexism.