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

[ikinai]

I'm not trolling in the least, I'm hoping to turn some heads onto something deeply problematic in a game I otherwise enjoy.

 

It's easy to dismiss these things with one liner posts and bits of nerd rage, but I'd sincerely like to see a well articulated paragraphed response in defense of the torture/flirt dynamic encountered with Vette.

 

If you think I'm alone or delusional in the matter I suggest a quick Google search or two--you'll find some professional journalists with very similar qualms. I wish we were trolling, but it's a serious issue.

 

The whole fiasco is a distressing, loud mess that we never expected from the likes of Bioware.

 

But there is nothing problematic, it's only in your head that is problematic. Do you not understand? You are the one thinking this, therefore it is you that is having an issue with it because you fear that you are being turned on by it. Which is perfectly natural. You want to feel powerful, but because of your own feeling of inadequacies you feel the need to lash out at anything you perceive to be deviant. You are projecting your feelings onto others, who do not see this as sexual. Did you not read the post explaining why a shock collar would be necessary on a slave? Or perhaps you glossed over the fact that there are also male slaves with shock collars as well.

 

You probably did because that would then undermine your thesis that it is denigrating towards women.

[FooBard]

You wanted to join an Imperial society - you got one. Evil or good. You cannot play a "nice" Sith Marauder - he would have to end up converting to a Jedi and or become like Jolee.

 

Honestly, you didn't expect this? You only consider it sloppy because you did not enjoy it

 

I could quote 99% of this thread with the same answer....

 

But to sum it up. The OP is spot on. He's NOT talking about "good" or "bad" or "evil".... he's talking about "Intelligence" vs. "Stupidity".

 

The Impire is FULL of Stupidity. What evil Dictator says "Do what I say, or you will DIE!"??

 

Uh, none.

 

While it might be true that, if you DON'T do what they say, you die.... it isn't direct. And the Dictator's "true" nature is hidden behind a vale.

 

Any dictatorship that was OPENLY "kill kill! murder murder!!" would not last a single day.

 

With the way this game portrays these "evil leaders", the Impire would CRUMBLE on top of itself.

 

OP is 100% valid.

Edited February 1, 2012 by FooBard

[Nexxa]

acting out sexual violence against your female slave Vette--

 

Wait... sending electricity coursing into someone's body classifies as sexual to you?

[Tortoises]

This thread is just silly. There is no inequality between genders here. Both are treated equally shabbily by the Imperial side.

 

- Vader was a young male slave (in the Republic, I might add). Slavery is littered throughout SW canon and the expanded universe.

 

- In terms of equality, in the game, you encounter 2 males slaves with shock collars within the first 2 planets. Green guy on Hutta you are send to retrieve and slave in Dark Temple that becomes the "leader" of all the posessed people in the Temple. It's not just female slaves.

 

- If you think the shock collar has a sexual aspect to it, that is *your* interpretation, based on what is in *your* head. I looked at it as an unpleasant prisoner control tool.

 

The Imperial side of the game is based on what we would find a very unpleasant culture played against our modern sensabilities. It's also *fiction*. And, you *don't have to play it* if you don't like it.

 

To say that the game deviates from established canon in the cinematic and literary SW expanded universe is just false and can be proven false very easily.

 

If the game offends your sensabilities, and you are entitled to put that threshold where ever you'd like, you should not play it. But to suggest that this game should be altered for its extreme content is just silly.

 

Video games are entertainment like movies or books. They are not required viewing. You don't like them, choose something else.

 

 

 

Amen. And to all of you trolls, kids and no do gooders, stay the hell away from our Star Wars!

[xirinia]

P.S. Talking about bigotry. BW allowed torture and violence but removed same gender relationships.Nice move BW. You support torturers, murderers, aggressors and rapists.

But you feel ashamed of letting people to have their private relationships the way they want. Way to go.

 

How did you come up with BW supporting all that? They make a game. With a script. Just as Starcraft does not indoctrinate you in genocide.

[ShamDeluxe]

I admit, I "spacebar'd" through the original post because it was so long.

 

Like most responders stated, we get to choose our answers and actions. Any sensible person that goes through the storyline choosing the last option or dark side selection can reasonably be expected to be offended at some point in time.

 

It is what it is. At least we get to choose, though.

 

ADD: I must says, however, that the first time I slapped "Vette" I felt it was a bit crazy and sexist for a man to slap his female "slave." However, I quickly realized that I was seeing it from the perspective of a male character. I could have easily chose to make a female character and had her slapping all her male companions.

Edited February 1, 2012 by ShamDeluxe

[osuaaron]

And this game is 100% written for teenagers. Manchildren that play it and are then offended that it's "stupid" need to go do something else with their time.

 

Even though the demographic is slipping upwards for video games, video game producers obviously still have 0 interest in providing material they would appreciate, that is higher intellectual material.

 

It's for kids. You're watching a kids show with "edgy" elements. And you wonder why you find it odd or strange?

[Safiir]

Did you read the entirety of the post? How often do you press spacebar? Do you feel there's anything problematic with the way some of the Empire quest lines are handled given it's T for Teen rating?

 

perpetuating age old chauvinistic view of female characters, aiding in slave trades, verifying race purity, sexually abusing a companion who genuinely just wants to help you.

 

Why does it seem like developers go out of there way to make games unfriendly to women? My girlfriend was literally sickened by it

 

--and yes she agreed that under the circumstance of a more intelligent, well developed scene the actions could be made justifiably, but as they stand it's just gross. Certainly worthy of an M rating and not fitting the Pixar vibe you get for the other odd half of the content.

 

Just because slavery, racism, xenophobia etc. are considered bad by modern morals does not mean they don't exist/didn't exist/won't exist in the future. This is a fictional universe. In this fictional universe the empire is a society where does things are considered beneficial and morally accepted. I'm sorry but if you're 16 years old and can't understand this, there's little chance of being able to do so at 18. So the age restriction is very appropriate. After all there aren't any visually repulsive or pornographic scenes to warrant a 18 rating.

 

P.S. Oh and another thing - if you play as a female character you're allowed to do those same things. So as far as gender equality goes the Empire is a much better place than our modern society.

[Limedust]

I said U MAD BRO purely to show the idiocy of the point he made, seen as I just changed words in his argument to match the opposing side.

 

Yeah, I noticed that . . . for some reason U MAD BRO just really rubs me the wrong way . . . just like it's intended to, I suppose. Otherwise, well done.

[LyriaFrost]

This thread is still going? Jeez.

 

OP, it's really, really simple. If you don't like such themes, don't participate in them. It's quite easy to completely avoid all the "icky dark stuff" with Vette. You get a choice, at 10th level or so when you get your first conversation with her, to take the collar off.

 

The fact that you CHOSE NOT TO, and in fact seemed (based on everything you described) to specifically go AFTER the darker aspects of the relationship with her leads me to believe that you're just looking for something to complain about.

 

Nobody is forced to shock Vette. Nobody is forced to torture her. You can remove her collar at your first opportunity and treat her like a friend and ally.

 

Instead, you CHOSE to repeatedly abuse her. The fact that this is an OPTION doesn't make it somehow "horrific and wrong and a statement of our society" or any such tripe. It's an option in a video game, where there are plenty of other, NICER options you could choose.

 

In summation: If you don't like it, don't pick it. You made your bed with all your dark choices, if you suddenly decide that this is sick and wrong, who's the one to blame? The person who wrote up a bunch of options, or the person who CHOSE those options?

 

Bioware just showed you the door. You're the one who kicked it open and went charging through.

[Dyvid]

1) The Empire is evil, that's a fact.

2) The bad guys deal with harsh issues like Slavery, abuse, and other things. Watch Clone Wars sometime and see what it's about.

3) Nobody is making you play the Empire, that's your choice.

4) If you play Empire you have a choice to be cruel or not, nobody is forcing to hit the punish button.

5) BW shouldn't have to censor it's content because you are offend by it, hell nobody should. People need to grow up and make choices for themselves instead of trying to make choices for everyone else. I don't need you to be my moral and social compass.

[Vaegaknight]

I could quote 99% of this thread with the same answer....

 

But to sum it up. The OP is spot on. He's NOT talking about "good" or "bad" or "evil".... he's talking about "Intelligence" vs. "Stupidity".

 

The Impire is FULL of Stupidity. What evil Dictator says "Do what I say, or you will DIE!"??

 

Uh, none.

 

While it might be true that, if you DON'T do what they say, you die.... it isn't direct. And the Dictator's "true" nature is hidden behind a vale.

 

Any dictatorship that was OPENLY "kill kill! murder murder!!" would not last a single day.

 

With the way this game portrays these "evil leaders", the Impire would CRUMBLE on top of itself.

 

OP is 100% valid.

 

You really haven't read a single god damn thing he has typed, has you? What's an Impire?

 

There weren't murderous dictatorships out there? Huh? Do you know a thing about human history?

 

Either way, what makes the Empire work is RAW POWER. You're applying real world logic to a fantasy setting where people can shoot lightning from their fingertips. Come on.

[osuaaron]

Nobody is forced to shock Vette. Nobody is forced to torture her. You can remove her collar at your first opportunity and treat her like a friend and ally.

 

I agree about this. However, I can't envision one scenario where Vette would want to stay with you. You're a freaking Sith, and she's - you know - not.

 

I can't imagine 100% of the time the slave would run for her life at the first opportunity - especially one that obviously hasn't been fully "broken in". But I'm falling into my own trap of getting mad over strange occurrences in a game written for teenagers.

[Sunstarr]

I'm not trolling in the least, I'm hoping to turn some heads onto something deeply problematic in a game I otherwise enjoy.

 

If you think I'm alone or delusional in the matter I suggest a quick Google search or two--you'll find some professional journalists with very similar qualms. I wish we were trolling, but it's a serious issue.

 

I have a better idea. Cite these sources of professional jounralism and post them here to back this claim of it being a "serious" issue.

 

You may want to review (beforehand) what constitutes as professional journalism first, and not random interbloggers.

[Fiachsidhe]

I said U MAD BRO purely to show the idiocy of the point he made, seen as I just changed words in his argument to match the opposing side.

 

If the only way you can point out how stupid someone else is, is acting MORE stupid. Than you aren't as bright as you think you are.

[Hahkil]

If the only way you can point out how stupid someone else is, is acting MORE stupid. Than you aren't as bright as you think you are.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=259153&page=16

 

Read my other post before making comments such as this please.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Hahkil

[ikinai]

You really haven't read a single gosh darn thing he has typed, has you? What's an Impire?

 

There weren't murderous dictatorships out there? Huh? Do you know a thing about human history?

 

Either way, what makes the Empire work is RAW POWER. You're applying real world logic to a fantasy setting where people can shoot lightning from their fingertips. Come on.

 

Most people tend to forget also that the story is all about you in this game. We just happen to be playing it along with a bunch of others on line. But, the story is entirely about you. So in reality of the game setting, there would be the empire and it's rising star, you. So it's not really as bad as it's being made out to be. It's one person doing the bidding of the Emperor. You, the player character, as everyone else in the empire seems to be incompetent lackeys.

[Amp_]

Imp'n ain't easy.

[SWImara]

I'm not trolling in the least, I'm hoping to turn some heads onto something deeply problematic in a game I otherwise enjoy.

 

It's easy to dismiss these things with one liner posts and bits of nerd rage, but I'd sincerely like to see a well articulated paragraphed response in defense of the torture/flirt dynamic encountered with Vette.

There have been reasoned responses to your thoughts, they've been ignored, thus the suggestions that you're a troll.

 

If you think I'm alone or delusional in the matter I suggest a quick Google search or two--you'll find some professional journalists with very similar qualms. I wish we were trolling, but it's a serious issue.

Group action does not mean people are right or that their opinions are valid. History is full of people believing backward *** **** and in a way the internet has exacerbated this issue by anyone being able to validate their opinions as shared by a few equally nutty people online. Particularly in our modern "era" being a journalist doesn't in any way make a person's opinions more valid, television (and doubly so for the internet) journalist make a living off of peddling their opinions thinly veiled as fact. I am sure I wouldn't be alone here with being able to claim the "journalist" title in past professional work. Let me be the first to assure you, my opinion is no more legit than yours just because I've been paid to write.

 

The whole fiasco is a distressing, loud mess that we never expected from the likes of Bioware.

 

I'm not advocating censorship, I'm asking for intelligent writing and honest marketing. I don't think it would help one bit to rip every copy off store shelves and cancel accounts--that would be against my core beliefs as a human beings.

The writing isn't intelligent because it offends you. If I didn't read anything that I found morally questionable or uncomfortable due to my age/ethnicity/political beliefs I wouldn't be able to read pretty much any early 20th century male Caucasian writer. Two of my favorite early genre writers (HP Lovecraft and RE Howard) wrote some mind-blowingly backward stuff, that doesn't make their writing "poor quality".

 

I'm just voicing an opinion and doing my best to raise awareness concerning issues of sexual violence--a topic perhaps more overlooked than any other aspect of game design. It holds us back.

Perhaps a video game's forums aren't the best venue to raise awareness concerning real world issues. To be blunt in the US I would definitely argue that violence in general is an issue every bit as much as sexual violence, we just happen to have more of an issue with the latter due to our cultural roots. I am 100% serious when I suggest that if you want to take a moral high ground ignoring all of the NPCs you have to murder or the en masse killing you have the ability to pursue through RP choices (like the one you highlight with Vette) limits your ability to do so.

 

My hopes are not to take away from you what you derive pleasure and fun from, only to encourage folks to take a second look at the way the narrative falls short to the point of neglecting years of progress in gender relations.

 

If anything I'm just pointing out what others seem to be too afraid to--and proposing the idea of revising the plot-line to justify the sequences with the same fair treatment afforded to audiences of the first two KotoR games.

Can you identify these individuals who are "two afraid" to speak out about the audacity of potentially sexual negative behaviors in a video game? I can identify several who seem not only bold enough to "speak out" about this issue but also bold enough to attempt to legislate it. Perhaps you might accept that people disagree with you out of something other than ignorance?

 

These are ideas, not demands, just pointing some eyes towards the marketing and writing woes in a game I care about created by a development studio I've enjoyed for too many years to count.

Some of our greatest literary works (as "Westerners") were morality plays, in the mid-late 20th century we moved away from these sorts of literary lessons to one dimensional we're the good guys types of writing. Right and wrong are choices, if you remove the ability to do wrong, the choice to do right becomes meaningless.

 

Apologies for the wordyness, but I definitely couldn't disagree more with the points you're making here.

[Sunstarr]

I agree about this. However, I can't envision one scenario where Vette would want to stay with you. You're a freaking Sith, and she's - you know - not.

 

I can't imagine 100% of the time the slave would run for her life at the first opportunity - especially one that obviously hasn't been fully "broken in". But I'm falling into my own trap of getting mad over strange occurrences in a game written for teenagers.

 

If you treat Vette well, she actually eludes to the fact that her whole life has been involved in slavery to someone at one point or the other. If your responses are right, played in character, she also admits to the fact that she saw such powerful, dominating types as surrogate father figures, being an orphan, your character included.

[Saurakk]

There are countless human societies and cultures that used ****, torture, murder, and other less than pleasant means to keep the masses in line.

 

The world is a mean place outside of Candyland.

 

This game lets you be the purest of the good, and the most vile of the evil.

 

Its written that way, marketed that way, and there is tons of lore to back it up.

 

Why is anyone surprised and trying to put a moral spin on a game that is literally trying to be immoral in many story lines?

 

I take it you hated the movie pulp fiction also?

 

And any scholar worth their salt would tell you to be exposed to both sides of any topic or theory so you can formulate an educated opinion on the topic.

 

Maybe, just maybe, some of the over the top story lines will make people think differently of their own actions in life when they see them magnified to this extent?

 

It can be taken both ways.

[hata]

Propose this to a scholar at any institution of higher learning. Hell, show your mother, your girlfriend, sister or even neighbor.

 

Have you lived your life believing there's no sexuality involved in caging or shocking someone as they writhe and gasp for breath? It sounds crass, but this is how the media is seeing it. This is how any person of reason is seeing it.

 

Vette is presented in a sexual way. With all due respect, it seems the delusion presides within the confines of your own limited knowledge of human sexuality.

 

"Any person of reason" I am educated. Have a shiny bit of paper to prove it. I do not see the problems the same way you do. Yes I have studied media theories. Yes I work in media.

 

You have a mighty tall horse. I only wonder how you got on it.

Edited February 1, 2012 by hata

[Starglide]

I disagree and you need to understand something. Even though Sith are Empire faction, if you follow the story, the Empire doesn't exactly like the Sith. They think they are nuts.

 

For example, you can roll a Light Side Imperial Agent, but that doesn't mean you want to be Republic. You are still defending the Empire, only you are not acting violently but smart. The same way if you are a soldier and you are in Vietnam and decide to kill a prisoner of war. This would not be the right thing to do and the US does not condone such behavior. That doesn't make the US government evil because of what the solider did.

 

Same thing applies, you can help the Empire and not be a butcher. This is a regurgitated topic and I do not know why people do not understand that dark side =/= Empire.

[LyriaFrost]

I agree about this. However, I can't envision one scenario where Vette would want to stay with you. You're a freaking Sith, and she's - you know - not.

 

I can't imagine 100% of the time the slave would run for her life at the first opportunity - especially one that obviously hasn't been fully "broken in". But I'm falling into my own trap of getting mad over strange occurrences in a game written for teenagers.

 

Well, I can see reasons why she wouldn't, personally. If you're actually nice to her, and treat her as a friend and ally rather than a slave, it's really not such a bad gig for her, you know? She gets to travel around, live free, and hang out with someone who can protect her. Also, I'd imagine that being tagged a "runaway slave" would be FAR worse than being "a slave". The latter just gets you glared at and treated poorly (most of the time), whereas the former would get you tortured and killed.

 

Sadly, my sith warrior can't romance her, cause Vette doesn't swing that way. Which is too bad, cause they get along really well.

[osuaaron]

If you treat Vette well, she actually eludes to the fact that her whole life has been involved in slavery to someone at one point or the other. If your responses are right, played in character, she also admits to the fact that she saw such powerful, dominating types as surrogate father figures, being an orphan, your character included.

 

You have to control a slave through fear. That's why she's a slave and does the things you tell her to do. The concept that anyone "likes" and wants to "hang out with" a Sith is ridiculous.

 

But Bioware will do whatever it takes to have that all-important relationship dynamic in every one of its games.