So it’s true: Feminists have started ruining video games with all their feminism. At least according to some dude called pullupjumper on MGTOWforums who recently wrote a post warning his fellow red pill dudebros about a little game called The Last of Us, which is not only filled with zombies but, get this, girls.
For anyone who plays video games as one of their hobbies, The Last of Us is a pretty fun game…. but…. The feminist messages were close to ruining a game I waited a year for… The game’s setting is in a zombie apocalyptic world and the basic story (no spoilers) is that this guy has to take a 14 year old girl across the country during the zombie apocalypse. Almost as soon as the story started, I knew pretty much every female character in the game (except for the main protagonists daughter) would be portrayed as a”bad ass” character. The message was clear, women are as strong as men… Even when they are only 14.
Also, there were some adult ladies in positions of authority!
During the game , the two main characters meet different survivor groups. Every group leader was a woman. The only group leader who was a man, was a bad guy. The main protagonist even said yes ma’am, no ma’am to these women.
CAN YOU IMAGINE.
Now before you all go, but isn’t this sort of complaining a little hypocritical, given that all these video game dudes got mad when that chick Anita Sarkeesian who isn’t even a real gamer because of boobies made those videos she totally stole all that money for because IT’S ONLY A GAME, LADY JEEZ DON’T RUIN EVERYTHING WITH YOUR STUPID GENDER ANALYSIS.
Well, no, it’s not totally hypocritical because, get this, the girls in The Last of Us are portrayed as being unnaturally strong and capable.
What was pretty funny though is that the 14 year old girl is able to fire a rifle THAT IS BIGGER THAN HER and fire it accurately.
This is a clear affront to the extreme naturalism and realism of a game about a ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE.
And clearly never before in video game history has any male character been portrayed as unnaturally strong or capable.
Oh but it gets worse:
On the other hand, (not funny) another boy who was about the 14 year old girls age, was portrayed as weak, could not fight, could not shoot a gun and was just made to seem very weak. The Fems cant even leave their “girl power” out of the games.
A male character who is helpless and in need of rescue?
OH NO!
SAVE ME PRINCESS PEACH!
Happily, pullupjumper has an idea for a way to confront this creeping feminism:
Maybe, if any of you are interested, a couple of us can get together and start making our own games after these games become unbearable. What do you guys think?
Grimlock is right there with him:
I’m currently going to school for media arts and animation and am considering starting a small indy animation/film studio with a couple of guys from class. I also happen to be getting pretty good at 3d modeling … and even though i want to start with animation and film video games are my end game.
I don’t think I’d ever put an obvious message into a game, since I find pushing your belief onto others through mediums like videogames more than a little cunty, but will my games be misogynist? You better fucking believe it. Misogyny The likes of which will make duke nukem blush. I won’t need to tell you guys when I break into the industry, you’ll know it from the sheer uproar it’ll cause.
Misogyny … in video games? Now there’s a novel idea!
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Oh, by the way, for new and/or extremely literal readers, I would like to point out that this post contains
gillyrosebee: He didn’t have the hand strength* to acutally pull the trigger
Was this a Double Action handgun? Because most single action revolvers/pistols have a trigger pull in the 4-6 lbs range, which is why toddlers can fire them.
My guess is he was too nervous to steel himself to the point of firing it, because he was afraid of the recoil, or looking a fool, or both.
Well, in fairness, Housemate has all his handguns calibrated for carry safety, so they are all adjusted to have a higher than average initial trigger pull weight (ca. 8 lbs, when I understand 2 to 4 is more typical). And Dave the gamerdude was soft as fresh biscuit dough.
Hermn…
Standard pull on a DA first round is between 9-12 lbs. For standard SA (when the slide has been racked/hammer is back) is generally about 4, though it can be as high as 6. Some people will have it down around 2.5 (competition triggers can be as low as about 1.5. Less than that is too light, and they go off when you don’t mean them to). Rifles tend to be between 6-8 lbs.
New York City requires a 12 lbs trigger pull (which is part of why they injured so many people in the Empire State Building Fiasco).
Also have you read Mira Grant’s zombie novels? I’m told they are great.
“I think some of these guys actually hope for the apocalypse because they think the women will die first (whereas they’ll be saved by their mad gaming skillz).” – 2-3 years back John Scalzi wrote some scathing remarks about anti-tax randites’ likelihood of ending up as “thin strips of Objectivist Jerky” in an apocalypse rather than living the good life in Galt Gulch; since then, every time I’ve encountered some group of overprivileged, uninformed twerps wallowing in apocalyptic fantasies I’ve thought “there’s some more candidates for the smokehouse.”
I also have to wonder why it’s so often the people with the least idea, let alone skills, to survive a general systems collapse are the ones most likely to be attracted to such fantasies.
It’s a misunderstanding of mathematical nature.
That is, with a 99 % mortality rate because of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, they’re the ones who are important enough to make the 1 % cut.
After all, statistics, fatalities and death have no clout when pressed against self importance.
RE: katz
I’m honestly not a big zombie fan either. I can understand the horror, in a, “creature that is dumber, slower, weaker, and in almost all ways inferior to you, BUT NEVER STOPS COMING,” way. (Though I also think it has some creepy weird disability subtext in it. Just me?)
However, I can enjoy it being done in novel ways. I found World War Z interesting because it focused more on people banding together and figuring things out, rather than the zombies themselves. The Voudon ‘zombies on strike’ comic was GREAT. (Then again, these were sapient zombies, capable of recognizing and arguing for their rights, however slowly. They weren’t sick, they didn’t eat or attack anybody, they just wanted to be paid for their labor.) As a wee preteen, we wrote about a friendly French zombie named Jacques who had no interest in biting, attacking, or eating anyone, and I STILL think some of the comedy we wrote for him was among the funniest shit we ever wrote as a kid.
But another boring-ass zombie apocalypse where only grizzled lone wolves with shotguns can save us all? Enh. Been there.
And, as a note, the rifle in the illo looks like a Winchester Model 70. Which is one of the smoothest bolt action rifles on the market. The M-21 Sniper Rifle of the US Army/USMC is basically a Model 70 with some minor tweaks (restocking to reduce already minimal barrel flex).
I own one, and it shoots better than I do. I’ve managed to shoot a sub-MOA group (an MOA is 1 minute of angle it equals a distance of once inch at 100 yards). I put three bullets into a hole .75 inch across at 100m (about 110 yards).
The heaviest versions of it (in the .30 caliber range) are about 7 lbs. Add a bit for the scope, and realise they are well balanced and there is no reason she can’t shoot it. With a recoil pad even a heavy load (say 220gr bullet, at 2800fps) is going to be fine.
But for shooting zombies, a much lighter load say, 168 gr. would be fine.
The US Army used a 150gr bullet for the M1 (which is what they used in 1906, when the cartridge was designed. They increased it to 170gr in 1926, to have compatibility with the Browning M1 Machine Gun, but the semi-auto M1 Garand couldn’t handle the pressures, and the gas-port would erode, making it a single-shot rifle; the action would fail to cycle, thus preventing a new round from being loaded).
Those heavier loads are all for really long range shooting, or for hitting larger game (elk, moose, bear). 168 will handle people/zombies/deer just fine.
Well, fair enough and I thank you for your experience. My perception was based less on the one fiction source alone (your point 1) than reading through that alongside as a wide range of other (mostly nonfiction) work, including essays, reports and notes from discussions Niven participated in (either at Niven or at Pournelle’s house, I don’t quite recall) when he and a group of other science fiction writers and scientists were discussing their advocacy on behalf of SDI (my dissertation research, let me NEVER have to return to it!!).
I loved their work when I was a young reader discovering sci fi, so maybe my dismay at some of what I read later heightened my sensitivity. And maybe I am conflating Pournelle and Niven too much. It would certainly make it easier to allow myself to love the work with fewer reservations (and I can go back to being thoroughly enchanted with the Ringworld books and the whole Known Space universe!
PS – it was double action, yes. Maybe I am not quite correct in my details. When I moved in, it was made clear to me that the guns would be here (though in the safe or otherwise under Housemate’s direct supervision) but that it was my choice to be involved or not. I am not really a gun person, but I took a couple of safety courses and learned how to clear, load and fire all of them (hopefully safely). Housemate paid for all that, and pays for the ammunition on the somewhat rare occasions that I go to the range to prove I have not forgotten how. I figured if they were here, it was a good idea for me to know how to handle them safely. He does a lot of cowboy action shooting, and I like to wear a corset and hang out with people who have a healthy appreciation for anachronism, so I tag along and pick up details sometimes…
I will definitely check out Mira Grant, thanks!
Have anyone here read the Felix Castor books? They have a fairly fun take on zombies. The “basic” supernatural entity in these books are the ghosts. Sometimes ghosts inhabit their old bodies, make them move about and stuff, and then you have a zombie. They can talk and think, but have a big problem in that their bodies decompose. There’s a zombie called Nick determined to hang on to existence for as long as he can, who lives in a freezer room and generally tries to stay as cold as possible in order to slow down decomposition. It’s generally acknowledged that ghosts and zombies exist. Exorcism is still legal, but there are people fighting for giving them legal rights. They are pretty entertaining books.
I’d say you might want to read the Known Space stuff. I might have a harder time reading Niven/Pournelle if I couldn’t tell which parts had been written by whom (I can also tell Steve and Larry apart, and I can pretty much break out each of them from the matrix in the Heorot stories, but I digress).
Ah.. you did read those. Those are much better at showing the basic Idea of Larry. SDI… oh what a mess. I recall those. They were at the Niven’s place in Tarzana. The stuff which came out of that was largely driven by Jerry/Greg Bear and some other virulent anti-Russians.
Caveat: I have not read those books. I know Seannan, and some of the reason I reccomend her is based on that; but the people I do know who have read her I have every reason to trust on the merit of her work.
I wonder if they ever got over Metroid’s hero being a girl.
RE: Dvarghundsposen
Reminds me of Hideshi Hino’s the Living Corpse. I like the idea, but I think the body horror would be too much for me.
Another thing that always bugged me about a lot of conventional zombie narratives is, how do you KNOW they’re completely dead to the world, never coming back? They usually rush it so they can just excuse lots of gore and violence, but seriously, if the zombie apocalypse happened in my back yard, I’d be really, really reluctant to just start whacking them with yard implements. I’m no biologist. How do I know they aren’t having a temporary problem? That there’s some disconnect between mind and body? Even if they did have some uber-rabies, that doesn’t give me the right to just kill them whenever I find them! (See “GIVE ME BACK MY BIKE!” zombie.)
This guy doesn’t seem to know anything about anything. First, there’s the obvious conclusion that “badass” female characters are bad, when, if we go by that definition, they’d have to be badass to survive that situation in the first place.
Also, there’s nothing unrealistic about a 14-year-old girl being able to fire a rifle accurately. A lot of hunters take their children hunting with them when they’re as young as 8 years old. They can fire one just fine. That rifle in the picture is clearly a hunting rifle, so why shouldn’t she be able to. Now, there is the differences of stress between a hostile environment and a hunting trip that may cause interference, but he’s sure as hell not talking about that.
Also, do they seriously expect to make games? Does he know the required workload and budget just to make one? I mean, they could make independent, low budget games if they’re good enough, but the implication of that comment was that he wanted to make AAA mainstream games.
Oh… and the SDI thing, was quasi-official. Jerry (by virtue of having known Reagan when Reagan was governor of Calif; and of having been involved with Newt, somehow), got that little shindig going.
Larry really does suffer from having been privileged/insulated. He understands a lot of things, on an abstract level, but not on a gut level. Which is part of why he says some really clueless things. He got a bit of Marie Antoinette’s problem. He doesn’t really understand limited options.
Jerry does. He just doesn’t care.
In the present SFWA flap, you don’t see Larry being an ass; Jerry on the other hand is hanging his out for all to see.
Thanks for the talk on “World War Z”. I’ve only heard the (excellent, abridged) audiobook, and in looking up the voice cast, I discovered that they released a “complete” edition, adding the cut chapters with new voice actors to the original recording.
I have been looking forward to getting the last of us for a while and this just makes me want it more.
The anti abortion thing in the walking dead was just ridiculous, Lori (the main characters wife) finds out she is pregnant and decides that she would rather not have a baby in a world where it would constantly be at risk of being eaten by zombies Lori’s eleven year old son. The response from her husband was to yell at her for even considering it and convince her that having the baby in a zombie apocalypse is a good idea.
My own attempt at an original take on a zombie apocalypse was a short story, I started a long time ago and will probably never finish, set in a world where the vast majority of the population is infected with a virus that causes them to focus solely on their immediate survival, satisfying basic desires in the short term and they lose their ability to empathize and understand the long term consequences of their actions. They abandon their jobs and families but aren’t particularly dangerous until food is no longer easily available and they turn to the nearest available food source.
Off topic, but since people are here I want to ask this again — if there’s anything you want to see from the survey data (questions are over here) now is the time to tell me.
Who wants to bet we never hear a squeak about this dude breaking into the gaming industry because it won’t ever happen?
Oh yeah… re rifles. I started shooting when I was 5. I was taught by (among others) my cousin; who was 12.
So this, “girls can’t shoot” shit, is shit.
My recollection is more than quasi, actually. They were given access to plenty of documents (classified and not) and to administration personnel, and had the help and support of a grateful president in the many and various ways that could be expressed.
I don’t know as much about Bear. I’ve read the books he produced for existing series I was already interested in (though his Kzin book sounded to me more like Stirling’s voice) but I just couldn’t get into his stuff. I tried but couldn’t finish either Quantico or Eon. People have told me I ought to try again with Forge of God, but there’s so much to read that it is hard to make myself go back to someone I’ve tried and disliked.
Lots of people have recommended Seanan McGuire, so I’ll have to pick up some of her work to start out with sooner rather than later!
The attempts of women to address sexism in a variety of movements (gaming, writing, take your pick) and the resultant (and usually awful) pushback by so many people whose work I really admired before… it’s killing me, really it is. So many people I just didn’t want to know were complete assholes…
Actually almost every competitive shooting team has female members. That’s the point of guns, upper body strength no longer places a limit on your ability to kill.
“I couldn’t watch “the Walking Dead” for the reason that it was so fucking sexist”
I think Walking Dead is feminist. Females make up half of the cast. In a real zombie apocalypse there would probably be less. But the writers are feminists who want to be PC.
Oooh, zombies!
1: I bailed on Walking Dead when the first attempted rape happened (Shane/Lori at the CDC). I could tell that they had looked into my skull, read my list of “Personal rules for the acceptable use of rape in fiction” and treated it as a checklist of things to avoid. From that point on, I knew, I was gonna spend half the episodes shouting at the TV screen, and I’d already done that for an entire season of Lost, so, no thanks.
2: And my own personal WTF? moment came much earlier on. You know that iconic scene where the Big Damn [White, Straight, Cis-, Male] Hero is riding into the city on horseback? The one with the haunting view of a highway where the outbound lanes have become completely jammed with cars that then needed to be abandoned, while the inbound lanes are all as deserted as a ghost-town? Yeah, everyone who died on that highway was a Darwin Award candidate, because if there’s an evacuation situation, both sides of the road should probably be used in an out-bound direction.
3: Zombies aren’t scary in and of themselves; like most monsters, they’re scary because of what they are a metaphor for. In the 60s, it was homogenization; in the 70s, consumerism. When 28 Days Later came out, it was a growing sense that anger was becoming the primary currency of our lives, so we got rage-zombies, who had the advantage of being scary because they were also faster/stronger than normal. The best zombie fiction is the stuff that focuses on the survivors and how they function–zombies are, in essence, the equivalent of a natural disaster that serves as a device to wipe out most of ‘civilized’ society and see what’s left.
What’s also really funny is that guns that handguns that are lighter are so heavy they’re impractical. Like the desert eagle. It’s about 4.4 pounds fully loaded. It has a hell of a knockback. There’s more than one video on YouTube of people getting hit in the face by a desert eagle they just fired.
And even then, who can’t lift 4 pounds? Now, holding a 4 pound object with one hand stretched in front of you may be difficult, but really, the only guns I can think of that would be too heavy for anyone would be heavier LMGs. And even then, those are meant to be mounted.
And she upchucks her PlanB’s. And then dies during a makeshift c-section. I couldn’t help thinking that this was supposed to glorify motherhood somehow, like ‘look how she suffered for her child, this is what mothers do, what a good person’ blaarg. Better for her to die and the baby be born than to terminate a very dangerous pregnancy.
In the comic she had the baby too, but it made (somewhat) more sense. I just hated how the TV show handled it.
The thing about Mass Effect is that they go out of their damn way to make it clear that DudeShepard is the real, canon, true one…. and then make it so FemmeShepard is the one that’s way, way more interesting to play as.
Part of this is Jennifer Hale’s excellent acting job, but part of it is also that the Manly Military Guy type is just less emotionally rich than his female counterpart (to the extent that it was like pulling teeth to make him gay, but she can be with any-damn-body and it works). I kind of wonder if that was at all deliberate, since it’s well known that Bioware and EA have, let’s say, competing artistic visions.
Ironically, that exact sort of double-standard is the sort of thing that MRAs would actually find it useful to talk about, if feminists weren’t talking about it already.
Insert obvious MRA joke here.