Rewrite Lt Harris's arc redside so it's not so offensive

[Guffnat]

Suggestion:  Why not take a stab at rewriting it yourself?  Put a revamped version in MA?  If it get's traction, it would be less work for the Dev's to update it...

 

This would probably be the best solution.

[Leogunner]

 

Women should not have to die for men to deal with their shit.

 

 

 

Correction: NO ONE should have to die for ANYONE to deal with their shit.

 

But yeah, equality amirite?

 

OR! We can just accept that there is writing we do not like and do our best to make better products in the future.  Rail on about how you can do it better, sure.  You however open yourself up to just as much criticism so be prepared.

 

Leogunner - so what MrCaptainMan said was true, right?  Women (being someone) should not have to die for men (being anyone) to deal with their shit.  Since the example in this case was specifically about a woman dying for a man to realize his flaws, and not about all people dying for someone to realize their flaws, I think he nailed it, right?

 

You correction is unnecessary and obscures the issue, so not really equality...

 

That's not what he's arguing though, now is it?

 

Because if he were arguing that no one should die for anyone to deal with their shit, there would be an entire laundry list of story arcs in the game that touch or or pass through that exact type of narrative progression.

 

Again, you miss the forest for the trees.  Just because something is a trope doesn't mean it's bad, misused, faulty or deserving of ire and revision.

[justicebeliever]

That's not what he's arguing though, now is it?

 

Because if he were arguing that no one should die for anyone to deal with their shit, there would be an entire laundry list of story arcs in the game that touch or or pass through that exact type of narrative progression.

 

Again, you miss the forest for the trees.  Just because something is a trope doesn't mean it's bad, misused, faulty or deserving of ire and revision.

 

So is your suggestion we don't address any issue unless we can address all the issues?  We should start at the worst example and go from there.

 

Do you have an in-game example that is more appropriate here?

[Leogunner]

That's not what he's arguing though, now is it?

 

Because if he were arguing that no one should die for anyone to deal with their shit, there would be an entire laundry list of story arcs in the game that touch or or pass through that exact type of narrative progression.

 

Again, you miss the forest for the trees.  Just because something is a trope doesn't mean it's bad, misused, faulty or deserving of ire and revision.

 

So is your suggestion we don't address any issue unless we can address all the issues?  We should start at the worst example and go from there.

 

 

Do you have an in-game example that is more appropriate here?

 

My suggestion is don't expect every piece of writing you don't like to be revised to your individual subjective standards.

 

Addendum: Understand the difference between "a problem/issue" and "something I don't like".

[justicebeliever]

My suggestion is don't expect every piece of writing you don't like to be revised to your individual subjective standards.

 

And my suggestion to someone who wants to make suggestion, would be to put it in the forums, right here, in the suggestions and feedback section. 

 

All suggestions here have subjective standards...nature of the beast!

[Leogunner]

My suggestion is don't expect every piece of writing you don't like to be revised to your individual subjective standards.

 

And my suggestion to someone who wants to make suggestion, would be to put it in the forums, right here, in the suggestions and feedback section. 

 

All suggestions here have subjective standards...nature of the beast!

 

Well I'm glad we agree with the 1st post of mine you quoted where I say:

 

"OR! We can just accept that there is writing we do not like and do our best to make better products in the future.  Rail on about how you can do it better, sure.  You however open yourself up to just as much criticism so be prepared."

[Castrum]

Removing this from the game just pretends that psychopaths don't do this shit to women on a daily basis. If you want shitty virtue-signaling writing in CoH, the Architect is right there.

[GamerKate]

I find it funny how people are latching onto how the objective states that Page is his GF as inaccurate.

 

Uh, no duh.  Technically, that flavor text is your character being cheeky and intentionally offensive to Harris.  It's actually a jab at Harris, not Page.  It's very common, actually, to poke fun of guys that are single or who do not have the game to get the person they have their eye on...but no one is actually arguing how it is offensive toward Harris at all lol.  Apparently, we're to assume it's a direct jab at Page who doesn't even know or could have any idea that text or intent exists until we confront her.  Contrarily, with Harris, who we directly interact with, it is implied we corrupt or spark his emotions intentionally.

 

But ok.  I'm glad you're keeping it real and looking out for the wahmens.  Keep up the good work  :P

 

It’s not flavour text it’s the Nav instruction to the player.

 

MCM

[justicebeliever]

Removing this from the game just pretends that psychopaths don't do this shit to women on a daily basis. If you want shitty virtue-signaling writing in CoH, the Architect is right there.

 

Well...To be fair, virtue writing is all on the blueside...However, there is a line that's drawn in the game - it's OK to pretend to do bad things, but to a point - we don't have child molesters (even though that happens), we don't target groups based on race or religion (that happens every day) and we shouldn't target women, just because they are women).

 

I don't think that's what's happening in this particular storyline...but I don't think we need to say that just because shitty things happen in real life it's ok to put them in the game.

[Doctor Brainbottle]

the writing should not refer to Lt. Harris as a "girlfriend". That is a valid objection.

 

But as for the "fridged girlfriend" trope, I don't agree this fits at all, starting with the simple fact that Harris isn't a hero. He didn't "innocently" open a refrigerator to be utterly shocked to discover his girlfriend in it. We the audience are not supposed to feel a single drop of sympathy for him, or outrage on his behalf. Our CHARACTER has the option to assure Harris that he did the right thing, but that is merely to re-assert that our characters are puppy-kicking villains. Finally, Harris doesn't undergo redemption or character growth: you either avert it by smoothly reassuring him that he did exactly the right thing in your loathsomely diabolical opinion as a villain, or you laugh in his face about what a chump he is and promptly dispose of the idiot. TV Tropes calls the latter option the "Heel-Face Door Slam":

 

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeelFaceDoorSlam

 

If there was a second part of this quest arc where a heroic Longbow agent hunts you down to exact revenge on you for what you did to Lt. Page, THAT would be a lot closer to the "fridged girlfriend" trope. But even this would be an inversion of the standard trope, by having so much of the story focusing on HOW the girlfriend ended up in the fridge, while the part where the hero discovers the body and vows revenge is glossed over as a relatively unimportant background detail.

 

 

[Castrum]

Why not? Might make things realistic and interesting. I don't mind seeing Daredevil club the shit out of human traffickers and pimps in the Netflix series. Heroes should fight all kinds of evil, not just PG Saturday Morning Cartoon stuff.

[Leogunner]

I find it funny how people are latching onto how the objective states that Page is his GF as inaccurate.

 

Uh, no duh.  Technically, that flavor text is your character being cheeky and intentionally offensive to Harris.  It's actually a jab at Harris, not Page.  It's very common, actually, to poke fun of guys that are single or who do not have the game to get the person they have their eye on...but no one is actually arguing how it is offensive toward Harris at all lol.  Apparently, we're to assume it's a direct jab at Page who doesn't even know or could have any idea that text or intent exists until we confront her.  Contrarily, with Harris, who we directly interact with, it is implied we corrupt or spark his emotions intentionally.

 

But ok.  I'm glad you're keeping it real and looking out for the wahmens.  Keep up the good work  :P

 

It’s not flavour text it’s the Nav instruction to the player.

 

MCM

 

It's also flavor text. It's not the 1st time the nav instructions to the player were used as flavor text since that text is sometimes the only text some players read to give context to what they are doing.

[GamerKate]

 

Women should not have to die for men to deal with their shit.

 

 

 

Correction: NO ONE should have to die for ANYONE to deal with their shit.

 

But yeah, equality amirite?

 

OR! We can just accept that there is writing we do not like and do our best to make better products in the future.  Rail on about how you can do it better, sure.  You however open yourself up to just as much criticism so be prepared.

 

I totally agree with you! Nobody should have to die for anyone to grow emotionally.

 

So Page shouldn’t have to die for Harris to get his emotional redemption.

 

MCM

 

 

[GamerKate]

 

Women should not have to die for men to deal with their shit.

 

 

 

Correction: NO ONE should have to die for ANYONE to deal with their shit.

 

But yeah, equality amirite?

 

OR! We can just accept that there is writing we do not like and do our best to make better products in the future.  Rail on about how you can do it better, sure.  You however open yourself up to just as much criticism so be prepared.

 

Leogunner - so what MrCaptainMan said was true, right?  Women (being someone) should not have to die for men (being anyone) to deal with their shit.  Since the example in this case was specifically about a woman dying for a man to realize his flaws, and not about all people dying for someone to realize their flaws, I think he nailed it, right?

 

You correction is unnecessary and obscures the issue, so not really equality...

 

That's not what he's arguing though, now is it?

 

Because if he were arguing that no one should die for anyone to deal with their shit, there would be an entire laundry list of story arcs in the game that touch or or pass through that exact type of narrative progression.

 

Again, you miss the forest for the trees.  Just because something is a trope doesn't mean it's bad, misused, faulty or deserving of ire and revision.

 

I would be interested to see the arcs where a woman is depicted as mentally ill and murders an innocent man and is rewarded with a narrative twist designed to engender sympathy.

 

But you are right, this is not really about ‘violence against people’. I of course don’t want to see any morally reprehensible acts perpetrated against men or women, but the issues I and others have with this arc are gender related.

 

I wonder if anyone has read the Women in Fridges article I’m referring to. It’s very interesting.

 

MCM

[EggKookoo]

Well...To be fair, virtue writing is all on the blueside...However, there is a line that's drawn in the game - it's OK to pretend to do bad things, but to a point - we don't have child molesters (even though that happens), we don't target groups based on race or religion (that happens every day) and we shouldn't target women, just because they are women).

 

I think the pushback here is the idea that this mission is targeting a woman because she's a woman. As opposed to just using a fairly standard human relationship (male and female) and using that as a basis for the content. I suspect many are skeptical that anyone would be raising flags if the sexes were reversed.

 

Also, regarding race, I beat up ethnic minority Skulls all the time. Is that racist? Or is acceptable because they just so happen to be minorities?

[justicebeliever]

I would be interested to see the arcs where a woman is depicted as mentally ill and murders an innocent man and is rewarded with a narrative twist designed to engender sympathy.

 

But you are right, this is not really about ‘violence against people’. I of course don’t want to see any morally reprehensible acts perpetrated against men or women, but the issues I and others have with this arc are gender related.

 

I wonder if anyone has read the Women in Fridges article I’m referring to. It’s very interesting.

 

MCM

 

I read it...I remember buying that very issue of Green Lantern.  I remember Gail Simone coming out with the topic in the first place...Like I said, I don't think misogyny was the issue, Gail was more pointing out a gender bias that exists. I think this story arc is an example of it.  Still don't think the Dev's should rewrite it...there is bad writing all over the place, and I'd rather see new content than rewrites of existing ones...

[Leogunner]

 

Women should not have to die for men to deal with their shit.

 

 

 

Correction: NO ONE should have to die for ANYONE to deal with their shit.

 

But yeah, equality amirite?

 

OR! We can just accept that there is writing we do not like and do our best to make better products in the future.  Rail on about how you can do it better, sure.  You however open yourself up to just as much criticism so be prepared.

 

Leogunner - so what MrCaptainMan said was true, right?  Women (being someone) should not have to die for men (being anyone) to deal with their shit.  Since the example in this case was specifically about a woman dying for a man to realize his flaws, and not about all people dying for someone to realize their flaws, I think he nailed it, right?

 

You correction is unnecessary and obscures the issue, so not really equality...

 

That's not what he's arguing though, now is it?

 

Because if he were arguing that no one should die for anyone to deal with their shit, there would be an entire laundry list of story arcs in the game that touch or or pass through that exact type of narrative progression.

 

Again, you miss the forest for the trees.  Just because something is a trope doesn't mean it's bad, misused, faulty or deserving of ire and revision.

 

I would be interested to see the arcs where a woman is depicted as mentally ill and murders an innocent man and is rewarded with a narrative twist designed to engender sympathy.

 

You're being obtuse making the qualifiers so narrow when your initial objection has nothing to do directly with mental illness and you've merely pojected a gendered objection when you still have yet to prove it was intentional.

[justicebeliever]

Well...To be fair, virtue writing is all on the blueside...However, there is a line that's drawn in the game - it's OK to pretend to do bad things, but to a point - we don't have child molesters (even though that happens), we don't target groups based on race or religion (that happens every day) and we shouldn't target women, just because they are women).

 

I think the pushback here is the idea that this mission is targeting a woman because she's a woman. As opposed to just using a fairly standard human relationship (male and female) and using that as a basis for the content. I suspect many are skeptical that anyone would be raising flags if the sexes were reversed.

 

Also, regarding race, I beat up ethnic minority Skulls all the time. Is that racist? Or is acceptable because they just so happen to be minorities?

 

I agree EggKooKoo...that's what I said in my first post here...I don't think this story is about attacking her based on her gender.  My response was specifically to rationale of the poster I quoted - we don't put content in the game just because it's evil.

 

But the whole gender reversal doesn't work here, because while that might be true, what is factual is what MrCaptainMan said - there is a huge bias in movies, comics, television to use a woman's death to grow the male protagonist.  And while there are a few examples of the reverse, they are, by comparison, an oddity and rare.  And guess who writes most of those films?  Men.  So it shows a gender bias and Gail Simone's article was a great spotlight on the issue and has caused a lot of people to rethink how women are used as plot devices...

 

And sorry, I am just not getting the Skull reference...

[justicebeliever]

I would be interested to see the arcs where a woman is depicted as mentally ill and murders an innocent man and is rewarded with a narrative twist designed to engender sympathy.

 

You're being obtuse making the qualifiers so narrow when your initial objection has nothing to do directly with mental illness and you've merely pojected a gendered objection when you still have yet to prove it was intentional.

 

He said many times in his original post that mental illness was clearly the reason that Lt Harris was behaving the way he was.  And gender bias doesn't have to be intentional to be present...Nor does any bias...In fact, many of them are unintentional.  Specifically, that's how many male writers responded to the Women in Fridges articles, they acknowledged a previously unknown to them bias in their writing.

 

I don't think ANYONE thinks that the original writers were malicious in writing this in the first place...That would be projection...

[jack_nomind]

+1 to changing Mariska Page's display name.

+10 to an option at the beginning of the fight to betray Harris a few minutes early and help her, either letting her leave (a "rogue" style ending) or sending her back to Arachnos for processing/ransoming/etc (the "villain" style ending).

 

I don't like the Longbow multi-arc specifically because of the Harris portion.  I wouldn't call it fridging because this isn't Harris' story (he "grows" into a potted plant), but whatever it's called, it's distasteful even as a villain.  'Neither elegant nor creative,' nor is specifically Page's death required for our objectives.

[Leogunner]

I would be interested to see the arcs where a woman is depicted as mentally ill and murders an innocent man and is rewarded with a narrative twist designed to engender sympathy.

 

You're being obtuse making the qualifiers so narrow when your initial objection has nothing to do directly with mental illness and you've merely pojected a gendered objection when you still have yet to prove it was intentional.

 

He said many times in his original post that mental illness was clearly the reason that Lt Harris was behaving the way he was.  And gender bias doesn't have to be intentional to be present...Nor does any bias...In fact, many of them are unintentional.  Specifically, that's how many male writers responded to the Women in Fridges articles, they acknowledged a previously unknown to them bias in their writing.

 

I don't think ANYONE thinks that the original writers were malicious in writing this in the first place...That would be projection...

 

But he says that Harris being mentally ill isn't the issue so why would a relevant example of a person being killed for someone else to get their relative shit together require mental illness to be a factor?  Or why would the example require the victim/perpetrator gender difference matter if we're to be discussing how NO ONE should be the victim for ANYONE else's respective character growth.

 

The problem is, if one actually does expand this to non-gendered specific examples, we'll discover that using death as an emotional tool or catalyst is common.  Biases start to paint a subjective picture of how those tropes interact.  It requires a bit of self awareness to notice, but when you start reflecting about your own biases, you'll figure out counters to your own perspectives.

[malonkey1]

That's not what he's arguing though, now is it?

 

Because if he were arguing that no one should die for anyone to deal with their shit, there would be an entire laundry list of story arcs in the game that touch or or pass through that exact type of narrative progression.

 

Again, you miss the forest for the trees.  Just because something is a trope doesn't mean it's bad, misused, faulty or deserving of ire and revision.

 

So is your suggestion we don't address any issue unless we can address all the issues?  We should start at the worst example and go from there.

 

 

Do you have an in-game example that is more appropriate here?

 

My suggestion is don't expect every piece of writing you don't like to be revised to your individual subjective standards.

 

Addendum: Understand the difference between "a problem/issue" and "something I don't like".

 

But they aren't talking about "every piece of writing."

 

They're talking about this one specific arc. One in which the player assists a man in murdering a woman for rejecting his advances. A thing that happens in actual real life with alarming frequency, but generally does not happen in the other direction. And not only do they willingly participate, the player is at no point asked to consider it critically or given the option to say anything substantively critical about the situation. You just spend the entire arc going, "Haha, you crazy. Sure, I'll help you blow up your co-worker, ya wacky guy."

 

I mean, there's evil evil, and gross evil, and helping some creep murder somebody because they dared exercise their own sexual agency and said "no" to them is gross evil.

 

And they're not even really saying anything beyond "Hey, this all is hella gross, could we rewrite it so it's not hella gross?"

[justicebeliever]

He said many times in his original post that mental illness was clearly the reason that Lt Harris was behaving the way he was.  And gender bias doesn't have to be intentional to be present...Nor does any bias...In fact, many of them are unintentional.  Specifically, that's how many male writers responded to the Women in Fridges articles, they acknowledged a previously unknown to them bias in their writing.

 

I don't think ANYONE thinks that the original writers were malicious in writing this in the first place...That would be projection...

 

But he says that Harris being mentally ill isn't the issue so why would a relevant example of a person being killed for someone else to get their relative shit together require mental illness to be a factor?  Or why would the example require the victim/perpetrator gender difference matter if we're to be discussing how NO ONE should be the victim for ANYONE else's respective character growth.

 

The problem is, if one actually does expand this to non-gendered specific examples, we'll discover that using death as an emotional tool or catalyst is common.  Biases start to paint a subjective picture of how those tropes interact.  It requires a bit of self awareness to notice, but when you start reflecting about your own biases, you'll figure out counters to your own perspectives.

 

I'm a little lost - but I think you are moving in a more positive direction here, so I like it...

 

He said that Harris was mentally ill...So if you reverse the example, you still need to leave that element in, regardless of whether that's the offensive part or not.  In fact that would be part of determining where the real bias is.  So his reverse example is the perfect reverse example.

 

I'm a little lost on what you are saying on the second part here...Are you talking people in general?  Or in writing?  People in general absolutely use death as an emotional catalyst regardless of the gender of either party.  That's 100% correct.

 

In writing however, there is a gender bias to not have a man grow from another males death, or to have a man grow from a living woman who can provide emotional growth.  In writing, there is bias to have the male hero grow due to severe damage to or death of a woman he cares about.  The bias isn't about men hating women...It's just a bias that man have in storytelling.  As you say, it's a trope...And tropes are often a sign of lazy or bad writing.

[EggKookoo]

The bias isn't about men hating women...It's just a bias that man have in storytelling.  As you say, it's a trope...And tropes are often a sign of lazy or bad writing.

 

If you're suggesting this is a bias that only or mostly male writers have, I suggest you read more.  ;)

[justicebeliever]

The bias isn't about men hating women...It's just a bias that man have in storytelling.  As you say, it's a trope...And tropes are often a sign of lazy or bad writing.

 

If you're suggesting this is a bias that only or mostly male writers have, I suggest you read more.  ;)

 

Well, that's true - it's not just male writers.  But Gail Simone's point was that in her industry, males dominate the writing, as they also do for Hollywood.  So more to the point, that's where the trope really applies - Movies/TV/Comic Books...