By all modern shithead alt-righters, Skyrim is “ultra woke”: It promotes ultimate equality and the ability to be anything you want to be, and freely become someone else later.
Or maaaaaybe people who use “woke” unironically just lack the brain capacity to comprehend even a game like Skyrim. 🤷
Morrowind is a basically the thesis of Things Fall Apart in video game form, with a good deal of Dune. It’s an examination of colonialism. Every detail of that game is dripping with politics. The Dunmer are racist and engage in horrific chattel slavery - but does that mean it is right for the Empire to colonize them and take their resources? There’s substantial evidence that your character is a spook sent to “fulfill” an indigenous prophecy to tighten the Empire’s control - is that morally right?
There’s also a hermaphrodite male presenting god who has had hundreds of children with something quite close to the Devil.
This is literally the first time I have seen Things Fall Apart mentioned since high school, 20yrs ago.
Good book, kinda got ruined by the typical over analysation of a HS English class though.
Woke basically applies to the bigots just realizing and getting worked up by things that had existed for decades. Either they’ve been dozing off for decades or have been “woken” up to it by propaganda with political undertones, and neither speaks highly of their mental faculties.
Although the thing about The Elder Scrolls in general is that it doesn’t hand hold you, so you are free to be a racist bigot and not realize it. They don’t force realization onto the player, you can happily adopt and become a tool of the point they are trying to criticize, you can willfully remain as ignorant as you would be in real life. In contrast to Starfield, where all companions are like the borg, of one mind telling you or nudging you into what you should have actually done.
Unfortunately what I really think is happening/happened with “woke hate” is manipulation for political gain as you mentioned with propaganda.
These people couldn’t care less before, other than the religious zealots that would crusade against anything “gay.” The political right (I really believe this started in earnest in the US) found a pressure point to use that puts them in direct opposition to what their political adversary aims to achieve (acceptance of all people for who they are). As it stands in the US the right operates almost entirely based off of “whatever the left aims for, make it appear evil. Always oppose all that they do.” as opposed to having specific goals of their own other than “shower the wealthy with benefits, remove all barriers to retaining the entirety of profits.”
Steve Bannon recently aimed their manipulation at what he described as “rootless white men” through the lense of gaming and societys affect on games/movies. Ever since that started there’s been an “explosion” of “this game woke?” discussions in Steam discussion fourms and in regard to movies. Before this manipulation these people just wouldn’t care and if anything you’d just see the odd person here or there complain about 2 guys kissing in a specific scene or something. They are made to be even more angry now because they’re made to believe it’s an affront to them and an attempt to manipulate them and society… Which is “funny” because they are being manipulated, just not by gaming/movie media.
Yeah the real reason they’re doing this cultural stuff is that they need a distraction from the fact that their material/economic platform is becoming more and more unpopular every year. So the anti woke/anti immigration frenzy must continue
Dem politicians should point this out more, but their economic program isn’t very popular either. I miss Bernie :(
I think what the image is trying to say is no one gives a shit that plays elder scrolls about this sorta thing because it’s a Fantasy game. No one needs to boot up a video game to be reminded how unfair and shitty our world is. We go to the game and escape that ( hopefully).
It’s not like fiction (including Fantasy) is often used as a means to do social commentary. ^^`
No, you go to the game to play a power fantasy regardless of how unfair and shitty that fantasy world clearly is because of how your status or your skills help you surpass it. The Elder Scrolls goes that extra step to give you the choice to contribute or fight that unfair and shitty to such an extent that people mod it in when the choice is not given, and the player does not even have to be aware of it.
People play videogames for the control, replayability, and often the narrative (which honestly was never The Elder Scroll’s strength), not necessarily to escape the world’s problems, problems which some games embrace. At a more basic level, games just need to provide gameplay and a player just needs to explore it.
There’s no shortage of games where you play as a jackass in a shitty unfair world. GTA comes to mind.
whoosh
What about a politician who sexually harasses an employee and making that employee read their erotic interspecies fan fiction.
Hey, don’t talk shit about The Lusty Argonian Maid, it’s a classic!
Aye, I could do that.
“Hey kid, ya wanna be Hortator?” - Harvey Weinstein voice
Somebody has been hitting the moon sugar a little too hard.
I have stock if you have coin…
Good, now make it gayer!
Dagoth Ur is woke as fuck and he will awaken all you sleepers.
In short, exactly how it was and how it should be.
🎶 🎵 How it is, and of course how it could be. 🎵 🎶
In RL Vivek is the racist one.
They all racist AF, except for Bosmer. They think everyone is equally tasty.
I miss the time when people realized that fiction, even if possibly metaphoric, is ultimately not real.
Even worse, imagine how woke the books of Karl May (not to be confused with Karl Marx) the most successful German author of all time that were originally published in book form in the 1890s [sic] would be if they came out today:
The foreword to the main trilogy would be so spicy that no modern English translation would include it. Like: He would call out the genocide of the native Americans as such and explicitly assign the full guilt for the decline of their cultures to the whites.
He would have the author-self-insert heroes telling people that use the N-word that “Once they scrape you into the ground, your white-skinned body will become straight and exactly as much a stinking carcass as a negro corpse. You will admit that, and now have the goodness to list your other merits!”
He would have trans coded characters being presented in an unambigously positive light.
And so many more incredibly woke things, like trash talking Christians that don’t respect all other humans and do evil shit…
Is the crusader gay?
Yes. Also a cyborg.
The Legend. The Elf Slayer. Pelinal Whitestrake
Comments are closed because: In 2020 this was made for my when subscribers and based exclusively on the writing of MK in its most unedited form. Whoever else stumbled onto this later bearing a delusion it was made for them (e.g. fans of a Baltimore computer game corporation) were never meant as a target audience. Do not sub.
What?
I wish all representation was done as well as when it was done out of creative choice rather than trying to win progressiveness points
I’m still taking that over no representation at all 🤷♀️
Seriously though, representation as a background noise is - imho - one of the most potent tools for normalisation.
And the persons who did good representation haven’t disappeared. They’re still doing the lord’s work.
Background noise isn’t an issue for me, if there isn’t an unnatural amount of attention being drawn and the pace of the story isn’t interrupted that’s just adding interest
The problem lies for me when said character isn’t fleshed out in other ways and their only defining trait is that they’re x, or that they don’t give them any character flaws because they’re too afraid to offend that group. Results in a character that doesn’t feel natural to the story
I see your point and don’t disagree exactly… but…
I will say it is odd that I hear this kind of criticism of flat gay/female/minority/etc characters but for some reason never hear complaints about the equally-flatly written comic relief characters, or best friend characters, or sage characters, etc. Video games and other stories frequently contain flat characters that are used more as props for the protagonist or other characters to react and respond to, yet complaints about these characters seem to only pop up when said characters happen to represent an under-represented demographic.The issue is the intention behind it, if the intention is comic relief they might not add much to the plot, but generally are still relevant in some way and make the film more entertaining
I’m not a huge fan of poorly fleshed out characters in general if they’ve got any amount of screen time
If they haven’t got much screen time and aren’t fleshed out it’s even worse if the one defining character trait they have is that they’re gay, black, trans, etc etc
Imagine if some adventurers go into a tavern, they talk to the generic hooded loner on their own in the corner, they give the adventurers the quest as usual and then for some reason mention that they’re vegan or something, no relevance to the story and it becomes kinda obvious to the viewer that they were only given that character trait to check a box
Kaos is one of the good examples I’ve seen recently sorry if I already mentioned it, there’s a trans character in the underworld who was part of a female only Amazon tribe and was thrown out and eventually killed for transitioning to male, but they don’t even mention any of that until he’s already been well established for a couple of episodes and they do it in enough detail that it doesn’t feel forced
I’m all for representation in media I should clarify I just want it to be done well, there are a fair few good examples but also a good number of bad ones
That’s fair and I see your point, even basically agree with it. That said, I still wonder sort of what standards we’re holding for “good” characters and how realistic that is. And I want to make a brief caveat that I don’t know you and can’t speak to your personal opinions so I will be making some generalizations about the topic in general; I apologize if it feels like I am unfairly lumping you in with anyone and promise that is not my intention. It is clear to me you aren’t a right wing chud screaming about DEI but rather you’re a very decent person looking for fleshed-out representation that isn’t shallow or driven by stereotypes.
Okay, caveats out of the way now, here’s the thing: I have a gay friend who is very proud of their community and themselves for being who they are despite any social pressures. This friend frequently goes out wearing full-blown rainbow attire, speaks with the affectation of their community, and they will absolutely inform you of their orientation upon their first meeting. Of course my friend has vastly more depth than just their community affiliation, but that affiliation is definitely going to be the largest and most prominent quality you associate with them, especially if you never move beyond acquaintanceship to friendship.
If my friend was in a video game, they would absolutely be described as flat or tokenism. But they are a real person. Even if you’re thinking to yourself right now “well frankly it sounds like your friend is lacking in depth in real life,” (I’d disagree, but go with the argument none the less, please), the fact is they still exist. There are people who define themselves by their identifiers first. So I don’t think the mere inclusion of these “flat” representations are inherently problematic.
I don’t think a flat character of an under-represented demographic is harmful in the way that a bad or stereotypical representation is. I think there is still benefit in the normalization of lesser-represented groups in media, even if those representations aren’t the deepest or most compelling characters. A gay shopkeeper who is flamboyant and one-note still helps normalize the idea of gay people in normal aspects of life.
But of course we can’t settle for these characters as the whole piece of representation. We have to still demand deep and complex under-represented characters, especially in lead or primary roles. I just personally don’t think the flatter characters are inherently problematic or detrimental to those goal. If anything, I think they’re almost kind of tangential or non-sequitur to the topic. The point isn’t to complain about flat under-represented characters and discourage their inclusion, the point is to demand good and complex under-represented characters regardless of the inclusion of these flat other representations.
I’m very sorry for the novel I wrote, my brain is crazy today and I couldn’t make it more concise in this moment.
Also I have no yet watched Kaos so I can’t comment on the representation in that show, but it does sound compelling from what you describe.
Also also, in case it’s not clear, I don’t think we’re arguing; I think we probably agree with each other about 90% of the way here.
Does seem that way
I’m not sure real people can be compared to fictional in that way, as your friend has infinitely more character because he’s a real person
If you were to ask your friend what his favourite food is, or what his opinion on pineapple on pizza is, or what he has for a desktop wallpaper he’d have answers for all of those questions or a reason he doesn’t have an answer
If you were to take one of these hollow characters I’m talking about and ask them that question the answer would just be made up on the spot
If your friend showed up in a TV show for 5 minutes just as himself in a situation he would realistically be in I can guarantee he’d feel real and natural because he is a real person with a history
It’s kinda weird to try to include representation without it feeling shoe horned. The world of TES (of any fictional world) is entirely hand-created. There are no accidents, all of it is intentional.
This means that, no matter how it’s done, any character deviating from the “norm” was consciously chosen to be so. These things that need representation (disabilities, gender identity, sexuality, race, etc) are all things people don’t get to choose, so there’s an inherent disconnect between the hand crafted world choosing to include diversity, and the real world necessarily having diversity because of chaos.
Following this thread, there’s never been a case of inclusivity, or exclusivity, that isn’t shoehorned in. It’s always been entirely the will of the author to include or exclude these representations. With that in mind, I think it’s only a good thing to see more diverse authors bringing more diverse worlds and characters into existence.
It only feels shoe horned when they don’t write the character well.
There are a lot of cases where the person isn’t allowed to have any flaws or character development because they’re too scared to make them look bad in any way, which also means none of their achievements feel earned. Ohers where they just don’t care enough to waste screen time on things that aren’t highlighting whatever group they’re a part of
Have been a fair few shows I’ve seen where they’ve done it right, recently Kaos had a trans character who actually felt like a human being instead of a token “hey look we have a trans person”
The recent doctor who special is one of the bad examples, most of the time the woman in a wheelchair is onscreen it’s because they’re drawing attention to the wheelchair (oh no, a ladder, oh no a set of stairs etc etc) and not to develop her character in any way besides that
That’s kind of a weird argument. I always took “shoe-horned” to imply that it is pressed into something by force where it doesn’t quite fit. So, in my mind just because something is intentional doesn’t mean it is shoe-horned.
Creative works always come from the authors lived experiences. The reason why we often find representation of minorities missing in media, is because these minorities don’t get to work on them. If there would be more diverse teams working on something we would naturally see more of their diverse experiences represented.
However, for this to be the case a lot would have to change in our society. It is way easier to just keep things more or less as they were and let people without minority experiences write and add minority characters. These, in turn, feel off, feel shoe-horned in, because they aren’t based off of lived experiences. They are just there to check a box.
Conversely, the reason why it feels like we used to have better (though less) diverse representations in media is because these actually came from people who had these experiences.
Eh, I think we just have different perspectives on things being short horned. In my view, anything that isn’t critical information to the story, it’s shoehorned in. If you tell me the main characters favorite food is pasta, and then don’t do anything with it, it’s shoe horned in. If you tell me a character is gay, and then don’t do anything they couldn’t have done the same with a straight character, changing a couple of pronouns, it’s shoehorned in.
To be clear though, I don’t think this is a bad thing. A story with only critical information will… Well, it’ll work, but it’ll be bland. Same if you make all of your characters blond, blue eyed, straight white men. Adding these details tends to be what makes us remember and identify with a character. That doesn’t make it any more strictly relevant to the story. Most characters people would view as “diverse” - even the ones people like - fall into this category, i think.
I think a better argument is, if these traits ARE shoehorned in, their alternative “normal” traits would be as well. If you go out of your way to state a character is straight, it’s just as shoehorned if everything else is equivalent. Do THOSE characters inspire the same ire? If not, we should examine the why of that specifically.
Yeah, I can see our difference in how we defined what’s shoe-horned in. And I get that you’re not saying diversity in media is bad. However, respectfully, I don’t think your definition of shoe-horned makes a lot of sense if you think it through. Is the music shoe-horned in, because it’s not critical to the plot? You said yourself that adding information that isn’t critical to the plot is necessary or the movie will be bland. If it’s necessary to the movie, wouldn’t you agree that it is critical? It may not be for the plot, but it is for the movie. Movies aren’t just plot. A lot of great movies (Nomadland, Patterson, Dazed and Confused, Coffee and Cigarettes, The Straight Story, …) don’t have a lot of plot or tell a great story. Instead they focus on the characters and the mood.
I think your example with the “blond, blue eyed, straight white men” betrays your perspective. This isn’t describing the default human being. Most people on earth aren’t like that. But it is the de facto default in western media. Why is it that? Because for a long time it was white men who made the decisions. Now that it has become a norm, everything that deviates needs a justification. And that’s kinda fucked up, isn’t it?
So, I think the question isn’t, why don’t “normal” character traits get the same hate as “alternate” traits? The question is, who defines what is normal?
I mean, movies have existed without sound at all, so yes, I’d classify music as typically not essential, unless the movie is ~about music~. Same with the movies you listed, they’re about the character growth and development, not a bigger plotline (I assume,I actually haven’t seen them).
In order to tell an effective narrative, certain pieces MUST be there. These are the story. Anything else is fluff, filler, not essential. You can play around with all of that, get something that looks and feels different, but is the same basic story. Remakes and AU style things do that all the time.
As far as the blond, blue eyed thing - I didn’t say it was describing the default human. It’s describing the default within American pop culture. The default movie hero is, and I’m spitballing here, a 30s-40s straight white dude. And, like or not, American pop culture is world pop culture. America largely defines the trends in pop culture worldwide. I don’t think this is a good thing, for the record, but it’s also not a crazy statement.
Specifying a ‘racist conservative’ is redundant.
Ubisoft has proven otherwise
We just got the Canadian Future Party, and even though I’m pretty left leaning (both financially and socially), it gives me some faith for conservatives here.
The Canadian Future Party (CFP; French: Parti avenir canadien, PAC) is a minor federal political party in Canada that was officially launched in 2024. It describes itself as being politically centrist, campaigning on a fiscally conservative and socially liberal platform.
That made me audibly groan, along with this:
- Allowing the private sector to take a larger role in society with government oversight
- Simplifying the tax code to close loopholes in cooperation with the provinces and territories
- Ending corporate subsidies and supply management where a return on investment cannot be delivered
I’m happy to be proven wrong, but this seems like a recipe for laissez-faire capitalism that will eventually end in a collective shrug, a few golden parachutes, and a recession. Canada does not need more centrism.
Translation:
Allowing the private sector to take a larger role in society with government oversight
Privatise profits, socialise losses
Simplifying the tax code to close loopholes in cooperation with the provinces and territories
Lower overall taxes, austerity
Ending corporate subsidies and supply management where a return on investment cannot be delivered
End climate-protecting subsidies
Point #3 also includes closing government owned entities like the post office.
Right, and I also forgot privatising things like water and then let them shut off water for poor people who cannot pay like in Chile.
thank you for translating these from corpo
Their platform made me roll my eyes a bit, the only fiscal conservative that makes sense is when you tax billionaires out of existence. Fiscal conservatism that taxes the poor and doesn’t give them benefits is more neocon bullshit
It absolutily isn’t. Get your head out of the sand.
No point fighting. Just remember its the same people that don’t understand a scholarship only for “people of color” is by definition racist. If a “white people” only scholarship is racist so is the one for people of color.
Are you pretending to misunderstand because you’re a racist, or do you actually misunderstand because you’re an idiot?
Please explain to me why a group of people gets a specific scholarship made for them soley based on their skin color?
Research has shown that students from Black minority and ethnic (BME) backgrounds are less likely than white students to achieve a first or upper second class degree, despite high level entry qualifications. Deep rooted inequalities and systemic racism contribute to this. Furthermore, this can lead to differences in employment outcomes between white and BME students long after graduation.
Imagine we have a student from a disadvantaged background. They win a place at university and they receive the tuition fee loan and maintenance loan from student finance. In the majority of cases, these loans will not cover their living costs and this is why 67% of students now have to work part-time while they study. If you cannot rely on the bank of Mum & Dad, the pressure of studying and working to cover your costs such as food, books, equipment, travel and accommodation can take its toll on your studies. 79% of students now say they worry about money constantly.
Of course, scholarships do not have to be exclusively offered to BME students. They can also be used to achieve other diversity targets, such as attracting women into STEM or disadvantaged students in to the professions.
https://www.thescholarshiphub.org.uk/scholarships-diversity-inclusion-initiative/
Thank you for a proper replay.
Deep rooted inequalities and systemic racism contribute to this.
Please explain the current inequalities black and ethic minorities face. If this a major point of the article, it needs to be defined and example needs to be given.
Furthermore, this can lead to differences in employment outcomes between white and BME students long after graduation.
Well, yes if you don’t finish collage that’s going to affect employment long term.
In the majority of cases, these loans will not cover their living costs and this is why 67% of students now have to work part-time while they study
That issue is not limited to people of color, whites have the same problem. The student debt issue is another problem, but its fucked up for everyone.
If you cannot rely on the bank of Mum & Dad,
Why does it seem like it is assumed every white person has generations of generational wealth built up? A lot whites, don’t have parental banks either. Who’s helping them?
Fundamentaly a scholoship that says “must be black to apply” is excluding a large group of people solely based on skin color. A poor white kid and a poor black could grow up in the same house and both are going to end up in a mountain of debt, but one of them gets a little more help because they happen to have a different skin color.
Please explain the current inequalities black and ethic minorities face.
I wish I could also thank you for a proper reply, but it really seems like you’re taking the piss. If you don’t even understand that racism is a thing, then it’s not really worth the effort of trying to explain any of this to you.
Sure. People of that skin about 15 million people for 400 year built this country without being able to reap any rewards for their contributions. Then I took another 80-99 years to give those people equal rights that we still struggle with today. By the time they became equal everything was owned and they were already cast into poverty. Until we see equal outcomes from people of that skin color as the average majority they deserve as much help as we can give them. Honestly they deserve reparations. But instead they only get scholarships until the college population equals that of the racial makeup of this country. Oh yeah they qualify for college just they wouldn’t get accepted because the institution is racist or with out the help the kids will have to potentially put their family at risk with huge loans.
First, think you for a proper reply.
By the time they became equal everything was owned and they were already cast into poverty.
What about all the immigrant families from the 1900s? By the time they moved over “everything” was owned and they too were cast into poverty. There seems to be a belief that if your skin color is white, you are immeditatly have generational weatth, when that simply is not true.
Honestly they deserve reparations.
How do you figure that out? There’re blacks finding on out one of their grandparents decended form slaves owners. Do they have to pay reparations, do they get half reparations? What about an immigrant who moved from Europe 20 years ago, do they pay reparations too? How about the Asians who were forced into internment camps during ww2, (they seem to doing alright after 80 years). Unfortunatly, I don’t see any way to figure out “who deserves what”. Frankly, if a child isn’t responsible for their parents crimes, why are whites being asked to take responsibitly for their great-great-great-great grandparents crimes? I will say, current communities (mostly the poor urban ones) deserves a lot of reparations from the politioms that are failing them, not the average white Joe.
They deserve as much help as we can give them.
The gov. needs to fix how we are giving people help. It seems that current help doesn’t actually encourage independent finical success. They way the aid is handed out based on income, a lot of people find they get less money than if they did work or got a raise. Let’s say the gov gives you 1k a month, you make federal min wage $7.25, work 40hrs and make $290 a week. Your total for the month(4weeks) is $2160 (pre-tax). That’s a fair amount. Let’s say get a raise, to $10, that $400 a week, but because your making more your aid also decreases. You’re making $440 more, it seems fair to drop your aid to $700 a month, so now your taking home $2300. That’s a nice increase, until you account for taxes. That aid isn’t taxed like wages, if at all. A lot of times, after taxes, an increase in wage and decrease in aid results in less going to the bank. Who is going to work for a better job, if they can just keep getting their free aid and make more money?
they qualify for college just they wouldn’t get accepted because the institution is racist
Stop asking about physical characteristics on the application, and even if some old white racists is in charge of it, they won’t know. Acception is based on merits, if certain communities are denied more often because they do not meet the merit based requirments, we need to look at the way underfunded primary education/childhood not the university.
With out the help the kids will have to potentially put their family at risk with huge loans.
That’s a problem across all races, not just blacks or disadvantaged one. My parents didn’t even qualify for the the family loans because their income was too low, yet I didn’t qualify for any income based scholarships, my skin was the wrong color for those ones. Just got some financial aid, a mountain of debt and a few small merit based scholarships.
The reality is: if you don’t understand why providing “white” scholarships is very different from providing “people of color” scholarships, then you don’t have a full understanding of how Racism manifests in America. This is a fundamental thing you will need to work to better understand before a discussion of this topic can be useful.
Nevertheless, you are correct that not every white person in America take advantage of generational wealth, but this is besides the point. The fact is Black Americans have been in this country for 400 years and the community is still disproportionately impoverished, whereas there are a lot of European/Asian immigrants who have been here for much less time and they are much better off. You kind of make this observation in your response, but missed the implications it has on how Racism rewards certain demographics.
Small correction but pelinal was a time traveling cyborg, but being gay is close
According to MK, he was written to be gay, but higher-ups had him make his relationship with Huna ambiguous.
Huna dies at the hands of the Ayleids
Pelinal goes on what is arguably the greatest slaughter ever perpetrated by one single being in the full history of the gd universe, culminating in not just the overthrow but freaking extinction of the Ayleid race
“They were just good friends”
History will say they were roommates
Great. Now you’re just making me rewatch allinall’s animated video of Pelinal’s slaughter for the 30th time: https://youtu.be/E5ix0_W-ouI?si=-2mGt8TDnU5wbwGO
Haha, that video was precisely what inspired my post. You can FEEL the unbridled wrath emanating from him.
Also: REMAAAAAAAN!
Achilles and Patroclus: “That’s our boy”
