what the fucking shit, Dragon Age?

[jinian]

I'm playing Dragon Age: Origins, which is a very pretty, gory, complex RPG, and I'm liking it quite a bit. But oh, the feminist rage. During character generation it says that men and women are equal in "most parts" of this fictional land. Maybe it's because I picked a dwarven noble background, but this is NOT equality. "Even women" were sometimes chosen to rule, and other annoying phrasings made me crazy. I was giving it a chance not to SUCK once I came to the surface, but now it's giving me the option to say, "I swear I'm the bravest one here, and I'm a woman." FUCK YOU, YOU REGRESSIVE BASTARD. We just met two badass women five seconds ago!

(I almost want to say it so I can check if the humans will be horrified. I guess I have a sexist and a racist option, the other bad one is "Are all humans such cowards?")

What really worries me is not that it's sexist; I'd have been expecting that bullshit if I hadn't been assured up front it wasn't so. It's the inaccuracy of the first statement. It's almost better if they were lying, but what if the game developers think this is what equality looks like? It fits horribly well with the idea (too widespread in tech) that there's no sexism problem any more. Yep! Everything's okay now! Derogatory stereotypes are perfectly fine and reasonable in an egalitarian society! ARGH.

Comments

[gregtitus.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're just over-sensitive, like most women.

(Kidding! Kidding! I swear!)

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Ha ha ha ha ha!

[eub.livejournal.com]

> there's no sexism problem any more.

I'm waiting for someone to tell me, you know, he really doesn't see gender. I get triple word score for that.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I saw some interviews with the people who made Dragon Age: Origins, but I have no idea where, now. The impression I got was that they knew it wasn't perfectly equal - they were trying to re-educate "typical" gamers and make the game safer for "non-typical" gamers. If they'd gone all the way to total equality, too many of the "typical" gamers would have been freaked out. Or something. It was a while ago.

Certainly, the romantic options in the game allow for both male and female same-sex couples. Though the ending is... not very pleasant, regardless of which one you pick.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I can see that it could actually do some re-education, but I really wish they hadn't claimed that this was near-equality first. Also I want there to be feminist blog posts about this, and I don't find any. (I did at least find idiots saying "wah I can't get all the trophies because I won't act GAY or play as a GURL" and abundant responses telling them to grow up. SO yay for that at least.)

I'm not expecting a cheerful ending, but I don't want to hear anything else about it!