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

[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.

 

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.

 

Fair point.

 

I don’t think that it was intentional, however. I don’t think whoever wrote the arc is a misogynist.

 

I have an arc in the MA which I wrote back on Live. Rereading it again to publish it now, I noticed that it had the same unintentional sexism that I see in the Price of Friendship. My arc started with the hero getting asked to rescue a hostage from the Freaks. The hostage was a women, and a small twist was that it turned out that the Freaks were in fact protecting her from her abusive husband.

 

At the time I wrote it I just saw a ‘standard’ hero situation. But I had written a woman character who was a victim of domestic violence who needed rescuing. Unoriginal and casually, unintentionally sexist.

 

I’m no more a misogynist than I was then, I’m just a little more educated in gender issues than I was then,  I think.

 

Anyway, I appreciate that lots of posters here don’t think the arc needs to be changed. I’m also aware that very probably this thread is basically a bunch of men debating something which disproportionately affects women, but until some women give their opinion we have to take that into account.

 

MCM

[Doctor Brainbottle]

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.

 

 

When does Harris ACTUALLY get an "emotional redemption"?  Every time I play through this arc, I choose to laugh in Harris's face and murder the guy. That clearly isn't emotional redemption. I've never actually chosen the other option, but I always understood it as obvious in the context of the mission that it might as well have been labeled "Kick An Adorable Puppy": you get this option because you're playing a VILLAIN. The point is not to redeem Harris, far from it: the point is to give your character a MORE evil option than laughing in his face and killing him like a chump.

[Leogunner]

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.

 

But we aren't supposed to be reversing this. The comment was around finding a solution not a "gotcha!" 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.

 

I disagree. There are TOO MANY examples of a man using the death of another man for character growth (and when I say too many, I don't mean we need less, just too many to count). I assert to those considering this arc, to reflect on their own biases and not blindly listen to other's perspectives. You may discover a whole other perspective you didn't realize you were ignoring.

[EggKookoo]

I disagree. There are TOO MANY examples of a man using the death of another man for character growth (and when I say too many, I don't mean we need less, just too many to count).

 

[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.

 

Fair point.

 

I don’t think that it was intentional, however. I don’t think whoever wrote the arc is a misogynist.

 

I have an arc in the MA which I wrote back on Live. Rereading it again to publish it now, I noticed that it had the same unintentional sexism that I see in the Price of Friendship. My arc started with the hero getting asked to rescue a hostage from the Freaks. The hostage was a women, and a small twist was that it turned out that the Freaks were in fact protecting her from her abusive husband.

 

At the time I wrote it I just saw a ‘standard’ hero situation. But I had written a woman character who was a victim of domestic violence who needed rescuing. Unoriginal and casually, unintentionally sexist.

 

I’m no more a misogynist than I was then, I’m just a little more educated in gender issues than I was then,  I think.

 

Anyway, I appreciate that lots of posters here don’t think the arc needs to be changed. I’m also aware that very probably this thread is basically a bunch of men debating something which disproportionately affects women, but until some women give their opinion we have to take that into account.

 

MCM

 

I would challenge someone to find a problem with that story.

 

You're mistaken tropes or cliché with social justice.

[GamerKate]

And when I said that Harris was possibly mentally ill, I was trying to be a little charitable to him

Whilst also pointing out that his ‘cure’ for his mental state doesn’t come from him listening to Page before he arc and getting therapy, but spontaneously due to her death. Which is sadly representative of the way in which men often refuse or avoid seeking professional help for their issues to the cost of the women in heir lives, who are expected by society to be nurturers etc and do emotional labour for men.

 

I thought that Harris’s revelation comes across a bit as ‘therapy is for women! Real men suddenly have complete turnarounds through dramatic events involving the suffering of their women!’

 

MCM

[lunawisp]

"there is a bias of violence against women from men that isn't present in the reverse..."

 

That is only true if you look, exclusively, at the 'official' stats.

 

When a woman complains about a man being violent towards her, the world jumps to her aid. The media carry out a campaign of harassment against the man which goes on till he's dead while protecting the woman's identity.

When a man complains about a woman being violent towards him, the world jumps to her aid. He's told to man up and take it. He's told to stop being such a baby and the press splash his details about with glee while protecting her identity.

 

Most attacks by women on men go unreported and of those that are reported, very few are recorded if any excuse can be found for failing to do so.

[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.

 

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.

 

Fair point.

 

I don’t think that it was intentional, however. I don’t think whoever wrote the arc is a misogynist.

 

I have an arc in the MA which I wrote back on Live. Rereading it again to publish it now, I noticed that it had the same unintentional sexism that I see in the Price of Friendship. My arc started with the hero getting asked to rescue a hostage from the Freaks. The hostage was a women, and a small twist was that it turned out that the Freaks were in fact protecting her from her abusive husband.

 

At the time I wrote it I just saw a ‘standard’ hero situation. But I had written a woman character who was a victim of domestic violence who needed rescuing. Unoriginal and casually, unintentionally sexist.

 

I’m no more a misogynist than I was then, I’m just a little more educated in gender issues than I was then,  I think.

 

Anyway, I appreciate that lots of posters here don’t think the arc needs to be changed. I’m also aware that very probably this thread is basically a bunch of men debating something which disproportionately affects women, but until some women give their opinion we have to take that into account.

 

MCM

 

I would challenge someone to find a problem with that story.

 

You're mistaken tropes or cliché with social justice.

I don’t see why tropes or cliches should be exempt from being examined for social justice purposes. There are racist cliches we don’t allow anymore, for example, rightly sp.

 

MCM

[justicebeliever]

I disagree. There are TOO MANY examples of a man using the death of another man for character growth (and when I say too many, I don't mean we need less, just too many to count).

 

 

A movie where the male hero falls to the darkside because he is afraid of his wife dying, and his partner does not show any discernible growth between movies 1 thru 4. 

[EggKookoo]

I disagree. There are TOO MANY examples of a man using the death of another man for character growth (and when I say too many, I don't mean we need less, just too many to count).

 

 

A movie where the male hero falls to the darkside because he is afraid of his wife dying, and his partner does not show any discernible growth between movies 1 thru 4.

 

Or, a movie where a male hero is manipulated by a male villain into betraying his male friend, who retreats from civilization in fear and/or shame until he can find the (male) offspring of his former friend and encourage him to kill his own father to redeem them both.

 

It's all in the spin.

[justicebeliever]

A movie where the male hero falls to the darkside because he is afraid of his wife dying, and his partner does not show any discernible growth between movies 1 thru 4.

 

Or, a movie where a male hero is manipulated by a male villain into betraying his male friend, who retreats from civilization in fear and/or shame until he can find the (male) offspring of his former friend and encourage him to kill his own father to redeem them both.

 

It's all in the spin.

 

Or before he is overtly influenced in movie 3, he is overtly influenced by his mother's death in movie 2, which is what starts his fall to the dark side (which is why QuiGon says "No" in this scene).

 

I don't disagree that the emperor isn't also influential, just that are 2 examples of the additional tropes in that movie as well.  That's not spin...My 2 examples are definitely in movie and definitely used to "grow" the character.

 

We can round and round on the example train...No one every wins the example train, because a trend or bias doesn't mean that there aren't examples of both bias and non-bias...just that one category outweighs the other...

 

Edited for crappy use of the the Quote function on my end...

[EggKookoo]

I have a very strong opinion on this matter and I need to get into explain... what? The servers are back up? I... uh... bye.

[Super Atom]

I'd be ok with this but only if before she teleported away she said "All. Men. Are. Pigs." and then every female character in the game showed up and started clapping as she left.

[justicebeliever]

I have a very strong opinion on this matter and I need to get into explain... what? The servers are back up? I... uh... bye.

 

Nice...+1 Inf

[Steampunkette]

So... two big things:

 

1) Art reflects or critiques our world. There is no alternative. Even landscape paintings portray reality as what the artist saw of it, or wished to see of it, which is why something like Starry Night is so different from most of what Bob Ross put out while still being the same basic thing: A landscape painting. Even the works of Jackson Pollock are meant to press the viewer to apply meaning to the paint splatters on the canvas... but art is also more than paintings. Music, movies, video games, any form of storytelling comes with assumptions of shared values, like 1984 assuming the reader likes freedom and doesn't like the idea of Big Brother being a thing. You get the idea.

 

2) No one is immune to cultural and societal influences. That which we see in art has an impact. Even, if not -especially-, mass produced media which constantly reinforces concepts through widespread repetition.

 

A lot of the recent Incel attitudes are based on guys expecting love to work like it does in the movies they watched in the 80s and 90s. You hang out with the girl you like and perform big grand romantic gestures and then she's in love with you and chooses you over the other, presumably more handsome, guy she's been dating 'cause your love is "Real" and women in those movies have minimal personal autonomy.

 

Through art we've conditioned people to see this as the way things happen. The way it works. Once those ideas and mindsets are stuffed together in an echo chamber long enough you get the "Nice Guy" and eventually the Incel. Hey, remember Elliot Rodger? Yeah. This is how he wound up where he was that lead him to going out and shooting women 'cause even the ones he never approached didn't fling themselves at him for sexual favors.

 

This arc reflects a particularly painful part of reality. That women are -vastly- more likely to be murdered by a man who they're either in a relationship with, or who -wants- to be in a relationship with them. 4 out of 5 domestic homicides are perpetrated by a man on a woman. And that's including LGBT relationships where the people involved are both male, both female, maybe neither, and women killin their husband/boyfriend/ex/whatever. ALL of those fall into that last 20%.

 

Stating that "It wouldn't be a problem if the genders were reversed" is a false equivalence. It ignores the greater realities involved in favor of pretending there is no difference.

 

And yeah. A lot of male characters die to further the story of other male characters. No doubt! But. Big but. Particularly in superhero comics female characters make up the bulk of romantic interests, rather than the bulk of superheroes, and have for a -very- long time. And they tend to get fridged for a male character's emotional growth (I like to call it manpain!) at a much higher rate than male characters get killed off for manpain.

 

Heck, Gail Simone (Comic Writer) created the Fridge List in the first place. And yeah, there's a few dudes here and there, but most fridgings by a factor of seven to ten are female characters getting killed off.

 

There's been a lot of bad faith arguing, here. As a woman (A trans woman in particular) I feel like the arc definitely has a place in the game. It touches on an ugly part of our reality, definitely, but it is part of our reality. Rather than seeing it removed, or even the ending changed, I'd rather see trigger warnings given to it and perhaps a few of the other questionable arcs that exist in the game. Simple statements letting players know that this concent is pretty damned sensitive and rough.

 

Westin Phipps, in particular, could use such trigger warnings.

 

Could add it to the contact dialogue. Or maybe a popup warning. Not sure. But yeah... I think that would preserve what exists in the game while also making it more comfortable for people who wouldn't want to be exposed to that kind of stuff.

 

Also I loved Captain Marvel. Best MCU film since Black Panther. The reason a lot of people think it is bad is 'cause it's written from the perspective of a woman overcoming emotional abuse through superheroics and such while emotional abuse is largely background noise in most people's lives. It's a women's power fantasy to overcome trauma instead of the traditional "Woman cries a lot and overcomes emotional abuse by finding a good man while spending time with friends and family who love her"

 

Also, of course, the hate that was lobbed at it before anyone saw any of it. So drastic that Rotten Tomatoes had to change their system from all the sexists trying to bury the movie. >.>

 

No one is immune to propaganda!

[Coyote]

 

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

 

No, Page has to die so that I can get my money from Arachnos ;)

 

But for the story arc, in stories, someone often has to suffer a great loss in order to grow. In a story, that's often the death of someone else, who they love. It makes sense that in order for Harris to grow and realize his madness, Page has to die. It could have been written another way, but I don't really see why it's wrong to make this a "lesson learned from death" story for Page, and a "use the crazy man as a tool for doing evil" story for your villainous character.

[Coyote]

+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.

 

I agree with this. The story works as it's written, but it would be more villanously elegant to betray Harris early and discard him as the crazy tool that he is, while capturing Lt Page for Arachnos. Letting him kill her to no gain is not nearly as much fun as betraying him, IMO.

[justicebeliever]

So... two big things:

 

1) Art reflects or critiques our world. There is no alternative. Even landscape paintings portray reality as what the artist saw of it, or wished to see of it, which is why something like Starry Night is so different from most of what Bob Ross put out while still being the same basic thing: A landscape painting. Even the works of Jackson Pollock are meant to press the viewer to apply meaning to the paint splatters on the canvas... but art is also more than paintings. Music, movies, video games, any form of storytelling comes with assumptions of shared values, like 1984 assuming the reader likes freedom and doesn't like the idea of Big Brother being a thing. You get the idea.

 

2) No one is immune to cultural and societal influences. That which we see in art has an impact. Even, if not -especially-, mass produced media which constantly reinforces concepts through widespread repetition.

 

A lot of the recent Incel attitudes are based on guys expecting love to work like it does in the movies they watched in the 80s and 90s. You hang out with the girl you like and perform big grand romantic gestures and then she's in love with you and chooses you over the other, presumably more handsome, guy she's been dating 'cause your love is "Real" and women in those movies have minimal personal autonomy.

 

Through art we've conditioned people to see this as the way things happen. The way it works. Once those ideas and mindsets are stuffed together in an echo chamber long enough you get the "Nice Guy" and eventually the Incel. Hey, remember Elliot Rodger? Yeah. This is how he wound up where he was that lead him to going out and shooting women 'cause even the ones he never approached didn't fling themselves at him for sexual favors.

 

This arc reflects a particularly painful part of reality. That women are -vastly- more likely to be murdered by a man who they're either in a relationship with, or who -wants- to be in a relationship with them. 4 out of 5 domestic homicides are perpetrated by a man on a woman. And that's including LGBT relationships where the people involved are both male, both female, maybe neither, and women killin their husband/boyfriend/ex/whatever. ALL of those fall into that last 20%.

 

Stating that "It wouldn't be a problem if the genders were reversed" is a false equivalence. It ignores the greater realities involved in favor of pretending there is no difference.

 

And yeah. A lot of male characters die to further the story of other male characters. No doubt! But. Big but. Particularly in superhero comics female characters make up the bulk of romantic interests, rather than the bulk of superheroes, and have for a -very- long time. And they tend to get fridged for a male character's emotional growth (I like to call it manpain!) at a much higher rate than male characters get killed off for manpain.

 

Heck, Gail Simone (Comic Writer) created the Fridge List in the first place. And yeah, there's a few dudes here and there, but most fridgings by a factor of seven to ten are female characters getting killed off.

 

There's been a lot of bad faith arguing, here. As a woman (A trans woman in particular) I feel like the arc definitely has a place in the game. It touches on an ugly part of our reality, definitely, but it is part of our reality. Rather than seeing it removed, or even the ending changed, I'd rather see trigger warnings given to it and perhaps a few of the other questionable arcs that exist in the game. Simple statements letting players know that this concent is pretty damned sensitive and rough.

 

Westin Phipps, in particular, could use such trigger warnings.

 

Could add it to the contact dialogue. Or maybe a popup warning. Not sure. But yeah... I think that would preserve what exists in the game while also making it more comfortable for people who wouldn't want to be exposed to that kind of stuff.

 

Also I loved Captain Marvel. Best MCU film since Black Panther. The reason a lot of people think it is bad is 'cause it's written from the perspective of a woman overcoming emotional abuse through superheroics and such while emotional abuse is largely background noise in most people's lives. It's a women's power fantasy to overcome trauma instead of the traditional "Woman cries a lot and overcomes emotional abuse by finding a good man while spending time with friends and family who love her"

 

Also, of course, the hate that was lobbed at it before anyone saw any of it. So drastic that Rotten Tomatoes had to change their system from all the sexists trying to bury the movie. >.>

 

No one is immune to propaganda!

Well said +1 Inf

[Neowulf]

+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.

 

I agree with this. The story works as it's written, but it would be more villanously elegant to betray Harris early and discard him as the crazy tool that he is, while capturing Lt Page for Arachnos. Letting him kill her to no gain is not nearly as much fun as betraying him, IMO.

How about just scrapping the mission and replacing it with a simple dialog option at the end.

"Harris, security there is still too strong but I can help you. Take these bombs, place them all over the base. I'll set the timer so you can get out."

Option 1: give bombs with a 60 second timer set. -Counts the same as completing the mission and sparing Harris.

Option 2: give bombs with a sabotaged timer. -Counts the same as completing the mission and killing Harris.

Option 3: give bombs filled with knockout gas. -New option. Harris, Page, and the rest all live. You gift Arachnos with a Longbow base full of incapacitated soldiers. Less experience reward but a larger inf. reward.

[Galaxy Brain]

Isnt there an arc where you poison an orphanage?

 

Just making sure that one is cool too

[Steampunkette]

Isnt there an arc where you poison an orphanage?

 

Just making sure that one is cool too

 

... not only has it been commented on, it's also not a pervasive cultural issue in the modern world..?

 

Like... you get that's why this is being brought up, right? Not "It's a bad thing to do!" but "It's a bad thing to do that is frighteningly common in the world today and based entirely on the sort of sexist/misogynistic violence which is so pervasive to western culture that you can hardly play a video game, read a comic, or see a movie/tv-show without it being placed front and center"

 

If people poisoned Orphanages on the regular it'd make sense to compare the two... but they don't. So it doesn't.

[Castrum]

At the time I wrote it I just saw a ‘standard’ hero situation. But I had written a woman character who was a victim of domestic violence who needed rescuing. Unoriginal and casually, unintentionally sexist.

 

Women who need rescuing from domestic violence don't exist? Cool story bro. Maybe she just needed to suddenly become an Uberfrau like in your dialog edit.

[EggKookoo]

If people poisoned Orphanages on the regular it'd make sense to compare the two... but they don't. So it doesn't.

 

Which is always great consolation to lone victims everywhere.

[Galaxy Brain]

Isnt there an arc where you poison an orphanage?

 

Just making sure that one is cool too

 

... not only has it been commented on, it's also not a pervasive cultural issue in the modern world..?

 

Like... you get that's why this is being brought up, right? Not "It's a bad thing to do!" but "It's a bad thing to do that is frighteningly common in the world today and based entirely on the sort of sexist/misogynistic violence which is so pervasive to western culture that you can hardly play a video game, read a comic, or see a movie/tv-show without it being placed front and center"

 

If people poisoned Orphanages on the regular it'd make sense to compare the two... but they don't. So it doesn't.

 

That is fair, and that is what I get for only having a moment to look and respond.

 

That said, isnt this potentially a slippery slope if this is changed on the reasoning of having a real world analogue? Like, instances where you are using violence by a Male player character to defeat female npcs... as ludicrous an example that is, isnt that worse since you are actually doing it especially if you're a Male villain beating up female protagonists?

[jack_nomind]

How about just scrapping the mission and replacing it with a simple dialog option at the end.

"Harris, security there is still too strong but I can help you. Take these bombs, place them all over the base. I'll set the timer so you can get out."

Option 1: give bombs with a 60 second timer set. -Counts the same as completing the mission and sparing Harris.

Option 2: give bombs with a sabotaged timer. -Counts the same as completing the mission and killing Harris.

Option 3: give bombs filled with knockout gas. -New option. Harris, Page, and the rest all live. You gift Arachnos with a Longbow base full of incapacitated soldiers. Less experience reward but a larger inf. reward.

 

Playing a villain is all about personal satisfaction, imposing your own code (or lack thereof) on the world.  So I get what you're saying, but I actively want the satisfaction of betraying Harris to his stupid face.