Sexual violence, slavery, and genocide. Just another day in the Empire?

[LyriaFrost]

But why do you identify Vette's torture as sexual violence? It's beyond me how the OP, and if I'm reading this right, you, think shocking her is a sexual.

 

Basically they're reading way more into it than is there, and making a really bizarre leap of "logic", such as:

 

Vette is a slave, that you can torture via the shock collar.

Vette can, at some point, have a sexual relationship with the character.

 

Ergo, shocking her is "sexual torture". Even if, as has been pointed out numerous times, you CANNOT have any sort of relationship with her while the collar is on. Hence, shocking her will not, and can not, lead to anything sexual in and of itself.

 

But that doesn't stop people from White Knighting it up.

[Morticoccus]

If you want to you can actually refrain from shocking her AT ALL, and removing her shock collar at the first instance you can talk to her once off Korriban.

 

Basically, you have to actually choose to abuse her, so if you don't want to, which I don't, you don't have to.

[Meiu]

None of that is a problem. If someone is so easily influenced by watching or playing something the issue is that their parents are bad parents and it isn't the games fault. Stop trying to place blame on everything in society instead of on the parents who suck at parenting.

[ByronixHero]

I think the point is that you can conceive of a character that could take it that way, not that it's implied by the scenes themselves. Personally, I think it's very reasonable to look at say, the initial scene where you meet her, and extrapolate from the idea that the jailer (and possibly your Sith) enjoy shocking her to the idea that they'd enjoy other methods of expressing their power over her, but that's not at all the same thing as the shocking being sexual in itself, you're quite right.

 

 

Perhaps the problem is that people are making that jump, which is quite a natural one to make, without recognizing that it isn't actually necessary, and not everyone is going to do the same?

 

Thank you for this excellent answer. Well said.

[Mechavomit]

I wonder ... how would you all react if Vette was a male ? Who would have said "This is horrible, this is free and sexual violence on a cute kind boy who wishes to help ! How can you be so passive in regards to violence towards men !" ?

 

 

I can almost guarantee no one would even notice any violance.

It was said before, female on male is "amusing and cute". It's in a movie every two years.

[Kaskava]

This game needs more:

 

Sex,

Violence,

And Sexy Violence.

[Aurondarklord]

Somebody's been watching Jesse Cox

[Kaskava]

He's not wrong.

[Nightdragoon]

i think the complatin is that that you are allowed the choice to hurt her. oh well... *shrugs*

[Kanndo]

How exactly is using a shock collar sexual harrassment? I'm fairly certain no pleasure can come from getting shocked with high voltage in your neck. Also would this point even be mentioned if you had a man slave? On the very first world outside the tutorial you go into a slave camp and all the men have shock collars on them as well but I didn't see that mentioned.

[MoonUnitLatina]

Opened thread because it looked interesting. Stopped reading at "leanient". This game is about the conquest of whole worlds but it should be all ***-bah-yah-smile-on-your-brother the entire time? That makes perfect sense.

[lexiekaboom]

I'm glad the Original Trilogy was made in the 70's and 80's. Today it would probably be a really lame politically correct hack set of films. Oh yeah, like the Prequels were! Let me jog a few things down from memory here.

 

Evil Sexist Empire:

 

Star Wars General Sexism:

 

 

The definitive work on the subject

 

http://www.cracked.com/video_18249_why-star-wars-secretly-terrifying-women.html

[Darkfirerage]

I think the game allows for alote of free will. its you choice to do a quest or not. its your choice who to kill or not.Thats the scar part your comfronted with choices and sometimes feel guilt or joy, but hell ill rather have a choise in how I cut you up, than none at all. to sshock or not to shock. im the the type to say **** it shock em. I like the emipire the way it is on the jedi side things where boring hell you even have to kill love on that side. In all of the empires evil atleast you allowed to love, atleast before shock you

[DieselCheezel]

90% of dark side choices are kick-the-dog choices. I think its stupid too.

[tehjai]

He's not wrong.

 

Yeah, the OP is. This "sexual torture" isn't in the game, it's in their head.

[Kiralai]

I am also at a loss as to how shocking Vette is inherently sexual. I am female in reality, and admittedly I do play a female character in the game, but even if my character were male I just couldn't see it. Even verbal harassment (which if you're playing on the Empire and especially as a Sith, you should reasonably expect to encounter) doesn't seem to be focused upon females at all. I get no more options to berate my female companions than I do for my male ones--it all seems fairly equal.

 

Going back to the shocking Vette thing--you don't really have to choose that option anyway, even if you are playing a more "Dark Side" character. Sure, it gives some extra Dark Side points, but as a Dark Side SW myself I tended to go for the "Keep your mouth shut and do your job, Vette" sort of options. Up until the point where she asked to have the collar taken off, which I did (and began responding to her a little more moderately in most scenarios) as my character would have sufficient reason to appreciate her (Vette's) usefulness at that point. I tend to agree with the gentleman in the first few pages who said "Make your allies fear you and they will fight for you; make them love you and they will die for you." There are plenty of other opportunities for Dark Side points that don't involve abusing your allies; you don't have to do it by any means.

[Gumbeau]

The choices that you make, in the game, are bacically the same choices you make in real life. If the consequencies of your actions were as insignificant. The game gives you choices, the decisions are yours. My Sith Warrior is still neutral at level 30. So sometimes I am a good guy and sometimes I am a *****. Does that sound like "life" to you. BTW Vette was out of her shock collar the second she joined my team. I saw no need to keep it on. Again a choice. There are really no bad games, just hasty minded little gamers.

[Yuuj]

Yeah, the OP is. This "sexual torture" isn't in the game, it's in their head.

 

This.

[Onyx]

I debated posting this when I first read the thread 10 days or so ago but didn't.

 

After reading more of the posts, I have to say it.

 

The OP is concerned about messages this game sends to teenagers about slavery and gender inequality, but not about murder and killing?

 

That may sound like an unrealistic statement--of course the teens don't think that the killing they do in a video game is an appropriate way to act in the real world. So why on earth should they presume enslavement, sexual harassment and tromping on women is?

 

Games are but one factor in their lives. They will live by the examples of the adults in their lives. One would hope that by the time they are 13, their parents and teachers have already instilled values of respect. If they haven't it still isn't the fault of a video game nor should we expect a game to provide that level of direction for them. Certainly many people don't see the way characters "can" act as a way they "should" act. It's still just all about choices.

 

As for me? I am female and saw all of the movies first run in the theatre.

[Ravishaw]

Hmm...I must need a shrink because for me there is not enough explicit sex and violence

 

^^^ I'm going to hell.... hahaha O and Shampoo Seriously?! All this over a game!? you must be off your rocker..... like more then me or MeJimmy.... cause Honestly, it simply comes down to "If you DON'T like something, DON'T DO IT!"

 

Your Nerd Raging over something stupid.... its like your an advocate for a Flat Earth..... not gonna happen..... lol

 

~Ravi

[Aurondarklord]

A couple points...

 

First off, I think what the OP's actual point is, if you sift through it all is not "this shouldn't be in the game" so much as "why isn't this covered with more realism and sensitivity?" To which I sort of...agree and disagree.

 

On the one hand, more depth would always be nice, can't ever argue with that.

 

On the other hand, you can't ask Bioware to put 5x as much attention into the storyline with this one companion than all the others. the majority of ALL companion stories are told simply through a series of about 15 short conversations, and maybe a few more detailed interactions during class quests. I WISH there were more, because I love the companion system, but there's only so much they can include in an MMO where they have to write 8 of these stories and create all the other content. This game went SO over budget and over deadline as it is. There's only so much time they can put into fleshing out Vette's perspective. Within those restraints, and the restraints that they can't have companions be able to leave you for mechanical reasons, I feel they've done a fairly good job.

 

As for realism...ironically, the very rating you ask them to increase PREVENTS them from doing that. Vette's slavery is a dumbed down, glossed over fantasy version of slavery, just like blasters and lightsabers are a dumbed down, glossed over fantasy version of violence. you either die immediately, die in a few seconds of gurgling if you get force choked, or get tossed in a kolto tank to fully recover. or maybe you get a cybernetic limb. We don't see the nightmarish horror of a man whose chest has been blown apart by a shotgun blast, we don't see the fallout of war on the families of the dead and the crippled, we don't even see blood because blasters and lightsabers cauterize injuries. And there's an argument to be made that portraying real evils like violence or slavery in a way that glosses over their true horrors is a bad thing, that it desensitizes our culture and leads us to turn a blind eye, where a more shocking depiction would make us take a harder look at ourselves and maybe improve us as people. However, as it currently stands, the realistic, shocking version gets you an M rating and tons of media controversy, while the glossed over version is T for Teen and makes a lot less waves. If they showed it the way you want it shown, it WOULD be rated M.

 

Finally, and this is a point nobody has brought up that I've seen so far...Vette is a criminal. She's a plunky, fun, loveable criminal, but she's objectively a thief and a pirate. In the real world, her actions would land her in prison, probably for quite a while, bad childhood excuse or not. She was caught breaking into one of the Sith's most holy archaeological sites, not for any noble reason, but just to steal. Imagine if someone were caught breaking into the Vatican and stealing a priceless relic from the life of christ. This person would be reviled by our society. Serious jail time would follow, even more serious than if they'd simply stolen a jewel of equal value from a museum, because they'd so offended our sensibilities. Some religious people might even attempt vigilante violence thinking jail wasn't enough. And that's the equivalent of what Vette did that got her into this position in the first place. SHOULD she really be immediately released from her shock collar and forgiven? Doesn't she deserve at least some measure of punishment. As much as you can argue that the darkest dark side outcome (Vette spends the rest of her life a collared, mistreated slave) is too severe, you can equally argue that the lightest light side outcome (Vette is simply released by the warrior immediately and gets a cushy job on their crew) is too lenient.

[Tgirgis]

This is what the darkside is all about:

http://swtorsithassassin.com/2011/09/how-to-role-play-a-sith/

 

Everything you see in TOR is an idiotic extreme based on the developers obsession with forcing players to "Trade off" in every single aspect.

 

Pick Jedi: You are trading away your freedom to become an emotionless robot.

 

Pick Sith: You are trading away your sanity to become a serial killer.

[runar_smugler]

I will def not let my son (9 years old) play on the empire side. He plays under my supervision on the republic side as a trooper. He cant read english so good, so he always choose the number 1 option on all conversation choices. They are normally light sided. He have lots of fun in this game. Yes he "kills" organisms in this game, but I cant see any problems in that. I always tell him we only kill the bad guys, they who hurt other people. And as far as i can tell...he is ok with the whole thing. The killing of "bad guys" is in all children movies/games anyway...and basically its the same in most grown-up films also;)

 

Personally I started to level an alt. Imperial agent (new level 11). And i must say I hate the empire. I choose only light side choices ofc. Maybe its me, but I can never play a character that does many evil things in any game. I do ofc not consider killing (republic soldiers) in a war an evil thing. But if I could choose I would run away from the empire with my imp agent and join the republic;)

[Dudden]

Why no adequate followup to something so heavy?

 

I'm sure someone else has already answered this (which you asked on page 30) but here's my take on why a followup is not needed:

 

You're mistreating your slave (which is your property) in a society built on the back of slaves! It's socially acceptable to do such acts in the empire so, not to mention that you are a sith, the top of the foodchain, the only people who would be in a position to correct you are other, superior sith and I can't imagine a sith lord or a darth berating you for how you treat your slave.

 

Ok, so let's say you agree with me that the society wouldn't react to your behavior, what about Vette herself right?

Well again... she's your slave, her life is in your hands, for all you know she might hate you and everything you touch because of what you've done, but defying you or even be anything but that "jovial" persona she displays could mean hear death or just more torture. Not to mention she could be suffering from the stockholm-syndrome.

 

So in my opinion there are plenty of reasons for there not to be any "you were naughty, here's your puníshment" reaction to this.

 

I'd like to hear your thoughts on these arguements

Edited February 16, 2012 by Dudden

[Neothanos]

People want a "gray" evil. Wrong game. The best thing about the Empire is they are quite open almost honest about it.

 

That most choose to be evil says much about people and why they are playing.