"Medieval fantasy games legitimize white supremacy" - Polidicks

[QUOTE=PaperBurrito;48280885]TBF I wish we had a nice Arabic fantasy history game That shit was interesting[/QUOTE] I wish we had a game about the crusades from the Saracen's POV for once.

[QUOTE=asteroidrules;48280673]Yeah, National Review is a complete joke, [URL="http://www.medievalists.net/2015/07/15/when-reality-becomes-fantasy-how-video-games-are-hijacking-the-middle-ages/"]here's the original article that they're completely misunderstanding.[/URL][/QUOTE] That post is garbage in its own right. Not sure how the National Review misunderstood it. [quote][B]Video Games and Medieval History: [I]The Elder Scrolls – Skyrim [/I][/B][I][B][URL="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004HYK956/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B004HYK956&linkCode=as2&tag=medievalistsn-20&linkId=3KUTUCNX4PKZLKIK"]Skyrim[/URL][/B][/I] is a massively popular medieval-themed video game. Part of the greater [I][B][URL="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DHF39EO/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00DHF39EO&linkCode=as2&tag=medievalistsn-20&linkId=32Z45TZJYFJOHKQS"]Elder Scrolls [/URL][/B][/I]video game series, [I]Skyrim[/I] was released in 2011 by Bethesda Game Studios and was a critical success. Cooper’s thesis focused on this game and the way players transpose their heritage and national identity onto the fictitious races of its gaming world. Skyrim is home to the Nords (Stormcloaks), a pseudo-Viking race. Tall, fair-haired, and pale, they are a sea-faring warrior society that values honour, family and glory. 34% of the players interviewed picked Nords, the vast majority of which were from Europe and the United States because they felt an affinity with Nord values and ancestral identity. Players associate themselves with the Nords/Stormcloaks because the Imperial soldiers remind them of Roman Britain, and they feel connected to Northern people, their plight, and this sense of “Englishness”. The Stormcloaks legitimise their cultural heritage. In players who identify as Scottish and Northern English, the Nords/Stormcloaks stimulate a sense of a northern, white nostalgia, that is ancestrally connected to a medieval place. Cooper suggests that, ‘medievally-themed video games are a space where whiteness can be anchored, in a “happy history” where a world is free of multiculturalism and white guilt’. The Crusades also attracts people to these types of games. Players create their own religions so as not to cause offense or appear bigoted. They cloak Christianity with an invented religion, yet one that mirrors reality.[/quote] [quote]However forcefully players maintain their arguments, many gamers continue to map their identity, heritage, and ancestry onto these games. They claim to be apolitical, yet in the same breath, refuse to acknowledge the politics behind these games. According to Cooper, they subscribe to the popular idea of the Middle Ages as ‘gritty, white, male, and powerful’. They cling to the notion that women didn’t fight in the Middle Ages, fiercely stating this as ‘as fact’, [b]and steadfastly refusing to allow women agency in warrior roles.[/b][/quote] So she obviously didn't actually do any research into the game she used as the centerpiece of her post. A waste of time entirely.

[QUOTE=PaperBurrito;48280885]TBF I wish we had a nice Arabic fantasy history game That shit was interesting[/QUOTE] There's an issue you could actually talk about. If you really want to talk about the overwhelming "whiteness" in gaming, start asking why you almost never see games centered in Africa or the Middle East. The majority that you do see are just Western countries firebombing Middle Eastern nations. Or hunting games. That's partly why Assassin's Creed was such an interesting premise for a game - it was in Israel, which is almost never explored in video games. And then it slid further and further west until it was studying America and the Caribbean.

[QUOTE=asteroidrules;48280647]This may be hard for you to grasp, but someone can do something that is interpreted as meaning something that they didn't intend, so what they did intend is irrelevant.[/QUOTE] What the did intend should take precedence over the fucking stupid shit that I've seen pass of as 'this is what WE consider the writer intended'.

Wow! Someone who doesn't play video games saying stupid shit about video games. I have literally never seen this happen before. And never have I ever seen such an ignorant fool use the topic of video games in an effort to further an apparent agenda in such ways!

I like good video games and if girls want to have more girl characters that's ok. If AAA developers suddenly pander to stupid shit the extremist types desire that would tarnish a game, then people will not buy said game. Then better games I like will come out again. People who complain about nitpicky social justice stuff such as this within video games will be supported by people who do not buy video games and blindly hate on them, thusly remaining out of the market and overall being pretty irrelevant to the whole thing. The people with legitimate qualms about gender or race inequality within video games and genuinely care have a real pull on the market, and through all this lately their voice has been heard. I don't see video games taking a massive, negative step to appease feminists, and if one did, I'm going to say it's been panned by many already. Truly, reading about nonsense from either side drives me up a wall.

A shitty article on an equally shitty blog, how can this possible be news?

[QUOTE=Mobon1;48281009]I like good video games and if girls want to have more girl characters that's ok. If AAA developers suddenly pander to stupid shit the extremist types desire that would tarnish a game, then people will not buy said game. Then better games I like will come out again. People who complain about nitpicky social justice stuff such as this within video games will be supported by people who do not buy video games and blindly hate on them, thusly remaining out of the market and overall being pretty irrelevant to the whole thing. The people with legitimate qualms about gender or race inequality within video games and genuinely care have a real pull on the market, and through all this lately their voice has been heard. I don't see video games taking a massive, negative step to appease feminists, and if one did, I'm going to say it's been panned by many already. Truly, reading about nonsense from either side drives me up a wall.[/QUOTE] See, but this isn't true. People were fucking foaming at the mouth when the Lara Croft redesign was announced. A [I]more realistic[/I] Lara Croft? Bullshit, she's supposed to be oversexualized, she's the femininity to Indiana Jones' masculinity, etc. It was an unbelievably outcry and pointless fury. Ended up selling 8.5 million and being the best-selling Tomb Raider game ever. Great reviews. Very fun game. Everybody forgot how upset they were. There are some complaints that are really poorly-researched and unfounded, like this one - the Nords are intentionally racist and it's supposed to be difficult to support them. Video games have the writing subtlety of a brick wall, though, so tackling problems like racism means they'll go "NORDS HATE ELVES, GET IT YET?" for about an hour until you have to decide what side to pick. But there's definitely a particularly unfounded and irrational reaction whenever someone suggests something like Brody from Far Cry 3 being a racist (not to mention fucking horribly written) character. I think it's a good thing that people point some of this stuff out, no matter how far diverged they are from video games. Fantasy was a shit genre to pick, seeing as how essentially every AAA military game is about some awesome American hero killing a bunch of (unnamed middle eastern terrorists and/or russians and/or nazis). Way more obvious and genuine complaints to choose from other than "NORDS ARE RACIST" - no shit.

Yes, my oppressed minority Khajit in Skyrim is so white it's blinding to look at my screen in third person.

[QUOTE=DaCommie1;48281135]Yes, my oppressed minority Khajit in Skyrim is so white it's blinding to look at my screen in third person.[/QUOTE] Khajiit are sugar fiends and natural thieves, they deserve every bit of discrimination they get.

[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;48281147]Khajiit are sugar fiends and natural thieves, they deserve every bit of discrimination they get.[/QUOTE] Wow, check your Nord privilege, Skyrim is for everyone man.

[QUOTE=Moustacheman;48280893][B]PRO-ELF IS CODE WORD FOR ANTI DWARF[/B][/QUOTE] [B]ELF LANDS FOR ELVES GOBLIN LANDS FOR GOBLINS HUMAN LANDS FOR HUMANS BUT DWARF LANDS FOR [I]EVERYONE?!?[/I] STOP DWARVEN GE-NO-CIDE[/B] In all seriousness, this site should probably be added to the "do not post" list, as it's about as good a source as someone's Tumblr blog or the Daily Stormer. This article is blatantly bullshit.

Both articles are godawful trash. One is sensationalist, the other is relaying it's own interpretation and experience, and trying to make it look like fact. It's like I stepped back into middle school and the teacher is telling me what the author was trying to convey while some kid uses a blogged source off the internet to prove the teacher wrong, and to make it sweeter, both of them are coming to wild conclusions.

[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;48281113]A shitty article on an equally shitty blog, how can this possible be news?[/QUOTE] Presented to academia. This is poison.

[b]Darkspawn have their rights[/b] jokes aside, can this actually not be considered "news" as I think it's an opinion piece?

[QUOTE=Te Great Skeeve;48281233]Both articles are godawful trash. One is sensationalist, the other is relaying it's own interpretation and experience, and trying to make it look like fact. It's like I stepped back into middle school and the teacher is telling me what the author was trying to convey, while some kid uses a blogged source off the internet to prove the teacher wrong.[/QUOTE] At least the source I used didn't go off on a tangent about how GamerGate was a failure and how "we're winning and no one can stop us, we're here to stay". The source I used just ridiculed the idea of what a game this person would find acceptable would be like in a smartass way. I don't understand why people hate the site so much.

[QUOTE=.Isak.;48280855]Reading this study (which reads more like an opinion piece), Cooper focuses solely on Skyrim. The Nords of Skyrim are designed to be unlikable racist assholes. That's the point. The game gives you a choice between joining a fantasy version of Imperial Rome or a fantasy version of Scandinavia - and both are pretty racist and unfriendly and horrible. Cooper outlines almost immediately that only 34% of players side with the Nords. A pretty large minority considering there's only two choices. She immediately says that players pick the Nords "because the Imperial soldiers remind them of Roman Britain." No sources - that's why everyone ever picked the Nords. Everyone being a minority. Then she dives into GamerGate. This isn't a study, it's a PhD topic for someone studying social studies. A pretty awful one, at that. She says that gamers "fiercely state" that women [I]cannot[/I] and [I]never did[/I] fight in the Middle Ages as warriors. But you can play a female warrior in Skyrim and there are numerous female warriors scattered all over Skyrim? The idea that a [I]fantasy game[/I] that very clearly portrays the Nords as racists and xenophobes is "masquerading historical facts" is laughable.[/QUOTE] Not to mention both are played against each other by super-racist elves.

why is it that the most outrageous spoken have had such good schooling :v:

[QUOTE=Pen Straw;48281262]why is it that the most outrageous spoken have had such good schooling :v:[/QUOTE] You have to be taught something this stupid by an authority figure to believe it.

[QUOTE=Mingebox;48281258]Not to mention both are played against each other by super-racist elves.[/QUOTE] Skyrim is basically looking at the topic of racism and jamming their face into the keyboard to write out a plot. Bunch of racist white supremacists for one side? AWESOME. But the player character might not like them... How about we make the Imperials ban their religion! That makes them more sympathetic and oppressed. Oh, but now the Imperials look sort of dickish... how about they're being controlled by this [I]other[/I] race of racist people that makes them ban the religion for their own goals? Perfect! Both sides end up being unlikable cunts and you feel zero attachment to the war as a whole because of it. If they had slightly toned down the racism across the board and given you more reasons to be sympathetic to either side, it'd be a much better game. As it stands it's just "Side A is racist. Side B is racist. Choose a side."

[QUOTE=Velocet;48281248]At least the source I used didn't go off on a tangent about how GamerGate was a failure and how "we're winning and no one can stop us, we're here to stay". The source I used just ridiculed the idea of what a game this person would find acceptable would be like in a smartass way. I don't understand why people hate the site so much.[/QUOTE] Because it's a wonder it's news at all How many academic papers do you think get published daily? How many of these papers do you think people actually cite or read these? (possible conclusions - [URL]http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/half-academic-studies-are-never-read-more-three-people-180950222/[/URL]) There are up to 905,090 PAPERS PUBLISHED YEARLY. ([URL]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2909426/[/URL]) This one only stands out because it's about social justice, and god damn do internet communities LOVE to get upset when they see anything about social justice. And look - I am a guy who is strongly against social justice. But bullshit sensationalism like this has to got to stop. At this rate, your going to seem just as bad as they do in terms of censorship via public shaming. Yes, they have the perceived "moral high-ground" so it's more effective for them, but it's basically the same damn thing. This article is freaking out about a nobody blog and nobody paper, and by publishing it, they are only making it more legitimate, even if it's not.

[QUOTE=.Isak.;48281318]Skyrim is basically looking at the topic of racism and jamming their face into the keyboard to write out a plot. Bunch of racist white supremacists for one side? AWESOME. But the player character might not like them... How about we make the Imperials ban their religion! That makes them more sympathetic and oppressed. Oh, but now the Imperials look sort of dickish... how about they're being controlled by this [I]other[/I] race of racist people that makes them ban the religion for their own goals? Perfect! Both sides end up being unlikable cunts and you feel zero attachment to the war as a whole because of it. If they had slightly toned down the racism across the board and given you more reasons to be sympathetic to either side, it'd be a much better game. As it stands it's just "Side A is racist. Side B is racist. Choose a side."[/QUOTE] Skyrim's plot wasn't that dumb. The Empire had allowed the Thalmor to act as a result of their power and influence waning so as to prevent an open confrontation with the new Aldmeri Dominion. The Thalmor, deciding to play both sides, went after Talos worshippers to snuff out the veneration of Lorkhan while also pressing forward Ulfric as part of a plan to further weaken the Empire. And it isn't all elves that believe the Thalmor's drek. It's not all Altmer, even. Just a large organized cult of fanatics. The Thalmor are basically Elven ISIS. That said, the source for this article made me sad.

[QUOTE=Explosions;48280912]That post is garbage in its own right. Not sure how the National Review misunderstood it. So she obviously didn't actually do any research into the game she used as the centerpiece of her post. A waste of time entirely.[/QUOTE] whaaaaaaaat I was wondering if Skyrim was going to be brought up, because that just lacks some basic information TES' most dominant race and culture are the Imperials, who are based on Romans and Italians. The real whiteys are the Nords and Bretons, and they aren't the most powerful in Tamriel or anything. Also this lacks really basic information of TES because, and I'm nerding the fuck out of myself, but most people tend to play TES according to what the demographic is of where the game is. I'm sure most Oblivion players picked Imperial. I'm sure most Morrowind players picked Dunmer. And in Skyrim's case, it's also fucking [I]vikings[/I], one of the most glorified badass types of people in media today. And as very basic RPG knowledge, " They cling to the notion that women didn’t fight in the Middle Ages, fiercely stating this as ‘as fact’, and steadfastly refusing to allow women agency in warrior roles." is bull-ass-shit. Now if you want to debate women in combat roles in history and how realistic it is, fine, but, almost every RPG ever lets you play as a woman. Dark Souls, TES, Dragon Age, so on. Even in most realistic medieval games, like Crusader Kings II and Mount and Blade, you can still play as a girl. Are you disadvantaged because of your sex? Yes. But that's again, just realism, and there's nothing in either game preventing you from overcoming those obstacles, and in fact, both games will [I]applaud[/I] you for it. Mount and Blade Warband has a huge number of achievements dedicated to female players. Like half the fucking single player achievements are for doing shit as a woman. The only ones I can think of that don't are Witcher, because the story is about Geralt, a specific character who was written as a man, and the yet to be released Kingdom Come Deliverance which doesn't let you because it feels that it's not appropriate to the story and setting, although I disagree with that.

[QUOTE=Grimhound;48281351]Skyrim's plot wasn't that dumb. The Empire had allowed the Thalmor to act as a result of their power and influence waning so as to prevent an open confrontation with the new Aldmeri Dominion. The Thalmor, deciding to play both sides, went after Talos worshippers to snuff out the veneration of Lorkhan while also pressing forward Ulfric as part of a plan to further weaken the Empire. And it isn't all elves that believe the Thalmor's drek. It's not all Altmer, even. Just a large organized cult of fanatics. The Thalmor are basically Elven ISIS. That said, the source for this article made me sad.[/QUOTE] Guarantee the average player of Skyrim knew nothing about that. Without delving into the ingame books and journals and such, the plot basically comes off as "racists fighting racists for control, but one side of human racists is controlled by other elven racists who make them more racist to get rid of a religion so they can control more." It could've gone into significantly more depth and characterization - most of the characters were weak and forgettable, which made the somewhat interesting drama and backstory behind the entire unraveling of the ingame plotline super pointless and forgettable. the only lines of dialogue I can even vaguely remember from Skyrim are meme-level ones like the arrow to the knee or "I am sworn to carry your burdens..." or Nazeem's cloud district shit. Everything else was forgettable and boring.

[QUOTE=.Isak.;48281410]Guarantee the average player of Skyrim knew nothing about that. Without delving into the ingame books and journals and such, the plot basically comes off as "racists fighting racists for control, but one side of human racists is controlled by other elven racists who make them more racist to get rid of a religion so they can control more." It could've gone into significantly more depth and characterization - most of the characters were weak and forgettable, which made the somewhat interesting drama and backstory behind the entire unraveling of the ingame plotline super pointless and forgettable. the only lines of dialogue I can even vaguely remember from Skyrim are meme-level ones like the arrow to the knee or "I am sworn to carry your burdens..." or Nazeem's cloud district shit. Everything else was forgettable and boring.[/QUOTE] From what i remember they mention that at every opportunity and you must have had really bad attention span to miss that

[QUOTE=T-hunter;48282105]From what i remember they mention that at every opportunity and you must have had really bad attention span to miss that[/QUOTE] I haven't played through the game in a long time, but I can barely remember much at all about the civil war plotline. It was mostly dragons and dragon stuff. Civil war was just a backdrop that wasn't fleshed out in the ingame storyline - you pretty much have to read books to learn more about the background of why it's happening. As it stands, Thalmor are bad guys that might be doing dragon stuff, you go there because the blades said to, and they're gone for the rest of the plot. The civil war plotline is awful. They hardly go "Thalmor are Aldmeri Dominion who took over the Imperials and are trying to take over everything!" at every opportunity. It just seemed like a cult of high elves who were corrupt and tied with the Imperials. I decided to read up the plot summary of Skyrim on Wikipedia to see if I was really that forgetful - doesn't once mention anything about the Thalmor's relationship to the Imperials or what they're doing in Skyrim. All I got from Civil War was racists vs racists and they were a backdrop to dragons coming back and magical hero saving world with ancient order of samurai dudes and old bearded people who shouted stuff. most of the rest was forgettable.

[QUOTE=.Isak.;48282178]All I got from Civil War was racists vs racists and they were a backdrop to dragons coming back and magical hero saving world with ancient order of samurai dudes and old bearded people who shouted stuff. most of the rest was forgettable.[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure other than some NPCs in Windhelm accusing Elves of being spies that neither side other than the Thalmor was racist. What I got from playing the plotline was that it was all about Independance Vs Unity. If you investigate the Thalmor you would discover they pretty much want this conflict as both sides would be weakened during it, however an Independent Skyrim can't be conquered easily and a Unified Empire would also be a problem. I'm pretty sure that niether side even mentions any race being superior or inferior, although I only did the Legion Plotline but I can guess it's the same case with the stormcloaks as the Player character can join them as any race.

[QUOTE=Mister Sandman;48281361]The only ones I can think of that don't are Witcher, because the story is about Geralt, [/QUOTE] the funny part is that even the overarching story of the novels + games is about Ciri, just told from Geralt's perspective

Taking on Europe as muslim in CK is more interesting anyway

[quote]"The Middle Ages is a space where white supremacy is legitimized," Cooper said, according to an article on Medievalists.net.[/quote] Well yeah? Sexism, religious intolerance, economic inequality, and social inequality are legitimized too. Because that's how things were in real life. Men were dominant, major world religions were facing off against each other and heresies, the poor and the landless were shat upon completely, and your status in society as a noble or commoner or holy figure (whatever) determined how well you were going to be treated and generally indicated what kind of a life you were going to have (hard or easy). If you want to talk CK2, there's even physical traits that help or hamper your character and the other characters of the world: they might be attractive and strong, they might be a hunchbacked dwarf with a hairlip; they might be a genius, they might be a depressed lunatic; etc. So why is Cooper jumping the gun straight to race here claiming white privilege and completely ignoring all of that other equally important stuff? Shit, white privilege? You can play as other races too. And lots of people do. Why are you hyping up your findings about white players generally playing as white characters? Here's some old news: psychologically, human beings are naturally attracted to other human beings who are similar or remind them of their parents/the group they were raised in. This study is terrible. How in the hell did you manage to get candidacy for a doctorate, lady?