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[Rolepgeek]

Again, you're strawmanning me by presenting a misinterpretation. If a game wants to do sexism in the setting, it can. It's just not necessary, and there's no real reason(particularly in worlds with magic, the great equalizer) that it would favor men. It only becomes an issue when it is overwhelmingly common.

As for broodmothers; while you're right, it's possible they could make it so men are transformed into broodmothers, it also stretches believability that much more. And you're right, they aren't necessary to the story/setting; no more than an arch-demon being a dragon rather than a humanoid figure, certainly. If you've played Dragon Age and fought the Broodmother that you have to at one point, you'd know they're a bit more dangerous and thus a little more than simple reproducers. That said, yes, that argument could be made for them being a rape metaphor, though I think it's less trying to victimize women and more trying to say "HEY LOOK DARKSPAWN ARE EVIL DO YOU GET IT DO YOU SEE HOW EVIL THEY ARE?" and using rape-metaphors as a metaphor for that. Which is sexist for it's own reasons, but still. And I could very well agree that they are then turned into fetish fuel, with the tentacles and what not(though that could be a Watcher in the Water reference instead, too, or even just using the typical 'it's an abomination, so it has tentacles' approach)

As for why they exist, the only real response I can come up with is that darkspawn need to reproduce too, and making them do so in a less human way(that is, with broodmothers and desecration and corruption and parasitism etc.etc.etc.) was an attempt to further dehumanize the darkspawn and show how they're the bad guys. They could have done so in a different way, I suppose, by capturing people and transforming them straight to darkspawn somehow, but that stresses the plausibility of them being a constant overwhelming menace since they rely on each captured slave only being one darkspawn. I don't even want to think about them reproducing through the typical method of normal sexual intercourse; that's it own disgusting sort of fetish fuel, too.

Question: Where the fuck do trolls come from, again? Are they made from Qunari broodmothers or something?

NINJAEDIT:

To your first point: I disagree as to the reason they don't need broodfathers. Again, it's similar to a hive of insects; they can simply use the worker or warrior/drones to be impregnated. But yes, it could be possible to have men become them, too, one could argue.

I think some of the desire demons take different forms at some point, even to the viewpoint of the player, but yes, they are presenting them in the stereotypical succubus format. Why there aren't incubi versions I dunno. Only (poor) excuse I could think of them coming up with is designing the extra models or something.

It's not really a spoiler, and I don't think it's so much their resistance wearing off as it is that drinking the darkspawn blood and such is a taint in and of itself, and a poison. It takes it's toll on your body. But the fact that it happens, and they then go to the Deep Roads to die fighting darkspawn, tells me that it's unlikely a Gray Warden could be captured and then made a Brood Mother.

Although, that might actually explain why dwarves are more patriarchial; women warriors are more of a risk than male ones, since the men just die/make weapons if they're captured(they're dwarves, so it's still bad), while the women get turned into breeding machines. That's some fridge logic/horror for ya.

[palsch]

If a game wants to do sexism in the setting, it can. It's just not necessary, and there's no real reason(particularly in worlds with magic, the great equalizer) that it would favor men. It only becomes an issue when it is overwhelmingly common.

I don't think this is quite right, or rather doesn't describe it so well.

1) Sexism in games settings is often symptomatic of unthinking or unrecognised sexism among developers. They make their worlds sexist just because they don't think anything of it, or don't consider an alternative. It's sexist because it's the default as far as they are concerned. As such, calling such things out is doing so as an example of the symptoms of wider cultural sexism.

2) Related to 1, such sexism can reinforce such views. The more fantasy games with unthinkingly sexist cultures the more that trope is reinforced and the more likely it is to be including unthinkingly in the future. Again, calling out is an attempt to slow or stop this.

These first two are a nasty cycle, which I like to imagine can be broken. Having game developers consider more how and why they are including sexism (rather than just seeing it as a default part of their settings) would be all it takes. Even if they only do so because they know they will be called out on it.

3) Unthinking background sexism is going to limit the stories you can tell. The range of female characters you can portray in a sexist setting (especially where the sexism is justified in universe) are going to be greatly reduced. Then the setting is used to justify the lack of female representation.

This doesn't mean you can't have good female characters in a sexist environment, but they are less likely to happen. In an egalitarian world any given role is equally likely to be filled by either sex and it's more likely that interesting roles will be divided equally. In an (unchallenged) sexist one you are not going to get that.


Again, I think this goes back to one of Anita's core goals with this whole series (and all her work in general); greater awareness among consumers and developers of these tropes. Just recognising sexism as sexism goes a considerable way to counteracting it.

[Jelle]

Question: Where the fuck do trolls come from, again? Are they made from Qunari broodmothers or something?

Yes. Human turned broodmother spawn hurlock, elf shrieks, dwarves genlock and qunari ogres.

Wait what?  *Checks the wiki* Oh, of COURSE.
So female captives are "usually" transformed into literal baby factories with hanging tits.  Through forcefeeding.

snip

This is from a woman dwarf Captain, cool, except she falls to corruption and "allowed the members of her expedition to be captured by darkspawn in order to breed more darkspawn".  Those silly women, huh?  Give them a little authority and bam, they're leading their squad into a rape trap.

To elaborate on this, if you guys want to discuss this thing further, the way it goes as I remember (been a while since I played it)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Branka the paragon launches an expedition into the deep roads with her house to find a magical anvil that creates golems. She finds the anvil but there's a gauntlet with traps, and she needs disposable bodies to break through. In an act of grim determination she let's her house servants be captured so one of the dwarf women gets turned into a broodmother, and then funnels its brood into the gauntlet.

She has the whole end justifies the means thing going (not just because she sacrefices her servants, but because creating golems requires further dwarven sacrefices. I think I sided with her actually.

[Neonivek]

I don't know... We found it incredibly easy to fight our way through there... and they had even more monsters there then usual.

[Rolan7]

As for broodmothers; while you're right, it's possible they could make it so men are transformed into broodmothers, it also stretches believability that much more. And you're right, they aren't necessary to the story/setting; no more than an arch-demon being a dragon rather than a humanoid figure, certainly. If you've played Dragon Age and fought the Broodmother that you have to at one point, you'd know they're a bit more dangerous and thus a little more than simple reproducers. That said, yes, that argument could be made for them being a rape metaphor, though I think it's less trying to victimize women and more trying to say "HEY LOOK DARKSPAWN ARE EVIL DO YOU GET IT DO YOU SEE HOW EVIL THEY ARE?" and using rape-metaphors as a metaphor for that. Which is sexist for it's own reasons, but still. And I could very well agree that they are then turned into fetish fuel, with the tentacles and what not(though that could be a Watcher in the Water reference instead, too, or even just using the typical 'it's an abomination, so it has tentacles' approach)

To your first point: I disagree as to the reason they don't need broodfathers. Again, it's similar to a hive of insects; they can simply use the worker or warrior/drones to be impregnated. But yes, it could be possible to have men become them, too, one could argue.

There's no real-world parallel for this process, partially because it's so wastefully sexist.  The insects that inject eggs don't seek out female victims.

I probably should stop ranting about this, but it's already typed up so here goes.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

    Seventh day, she grew as in her mouth they spew.
    Eighth day, we hated as she is violated.
    Ninth day, she grins and devours her kin.

Being fed tainted flesh makes them giant monsters, but they only turn evil on day 9 - after being raped.  It's arguably a delayed effect of the tainted flesh, but then what purpose does the rape serve?  In universe, who knows.  From a development standpoint, it:
Hamfistedly makes the scene explicitly sexual and thus more titillating
Shows how evil the darkspawn are by stuffing the woman in a refrigerator (to reference the trope)
Implies that the rape has destroyed the victim's inhibitions and now she's just fine with all of this

This would make an interesting porno, but it's unexcusable in a mainstream game.

Again, the male victims are completely absent for this trauma.  They aren't mentioned in the poem at all, and the account is from a woman who was forced to watch the process.  The men are fated to work, as craftsmen, a fate that supposedly none of the female captives are fit for.  They could have corrupted even a single male into a mindless stud.  The scene would be more horrifying to the typical gamer (which is *supposedly* the point, right?), it would make more biological sense, and it wouldn't be sexist anymore.

I think some of the desire demons take different forms at some point, even to the viewpoint of the player, but yes, they are presenting them in the stereotypical succubus format. Why there aren't incubi versions I dunno. Only (poor) excuse I could think of them coming up with is designing the extra models or something.

Yeah, the cost of more models is actually a decent excuse.  There seem to be only three named desire demons, and only one seems to have a unique appearance at all.  Still, even with a single model they could have picked something less overplayed and gratuitous.

I don't know... We found it incredibly easy to fight our way through there... and they had even more monsters there then usual.

PC party privilege (;
Thanks for the backstory on Branka, Jelle.  Bioware does write good stories sometimes... that's why this broodmother nonsense bothers me so much, it seems so out of place in a story-rich game that seems gender-neutral at first glance.

[Rolepgeek]

What does injecting eggs have to do with anything? The whole part where they have to corrupt other species is just a reference to Tolkien, and the evilness of the darkspawn, and such. I'm talking about queen bees where they lay the eggs for the whole colony.

You keep talking about how they're trying to make it sexual and tittilating or somesuch, which really doesn't make sense to me because it's all pretty disgusting, but it's still just a backstory piece; I really don't see how that serves to try and excite people. Yes, it does show that darkspawn are evil in a more hamfisted way. I don't think it's trying to imply that the rape has destroyed the darkspawn inhibitions; I think it's more likely that that was part of the process(which, in a perverse way, makes sense, considering she's going to be used to breed more darkspawn; of course they would do something related to breeding to finish corrupting her).

As for the men being breeding studs; they already have darkspawn to do that, I mean I suppose they could have but it's just unnecessary added stuff to the process. Excess decorum, so to speak, attached for no other purpose but to balance out the broodmothers. I don't know if none of the females were fit to be crafters or if the darkspawn are just sexist too(it seems weird that they would prioritize killing X over Y, but whatever), so I can't comment on that.

[Rolan7]

What does injecting eggs have to do with anything? The whole part where they have to corrupt other species is just a reference to Tolkien, and the evilness of the darkspawn, and such. I'm talking about queen bees where they lay the eggs for the whole colony.

Sorry, I misunderstood what kind of insects you meant.  I was looking for real world examples of insects using other creatures to host young, like darkspawn do.  But basically darkspawn aren't like those wasps, and they aren't like bees or ants.  They aren't a reference to any real world biology at all, the developers created their entire unrealistic biology.  Which is great!  Unfortunately, given this full creative control, they decided their villains would rape women and employ men, for no apparent in-universe reason.

It's probably internally consistent.  We can *assume* that darkspawn just can't perform the process on males.  But that's only true because the developers made it that way.  My argument is that they could have made the darkspawn even more horrible if they hadn't made it sexist.

You keep talking about how they're trying to make it sexual and tittilating or somesuch, which really doesn't make sense to me because it's all pretty disgusting, but it's still just a backstory piece; I really don't see how that serves to try and excite people. Yes, it does show that darkspawn are evil in a more hamfisted way. I don't think it's trying to imply that the rape has destroyed the darkspawn inhibitions; I think it's more likely that that was part of the process(which, in a perverse way, makes sense, considering she's going to be used to breed more darkspawn; of course they would do something related to breeding to finish corrupting her).

"Monstergirls" are a common theme in erotica.  Most of the broodmonsters are probably too monstrous, but "The Mother" is a mostly normal woman (perfectly proportioned) embedded in a spider.  She has claw hands and her mouth does a funny thing, but her exposed boobs and torso are like any naked woman (who happens to be a porn star).

There isn't even any confusion about her genitals, because she's not even embedded into "her" spider carapace far enough to cover them.

Trust me, this unnecessary rape-fantasy was meant as much to titillate as it was to horrify.

As for the men being breeding studs; they already have darkspawn to do that, I mean I suppose they could have but it's just unnecessary added stuff to the process. Excess decorum, so to speak, attached for no other purpose but to balance out the broodmothers. I don't know if none of the females were fit to be crafters or if the darkspawn are just sexist too(it seems weird that they would prioritize killing X over Y, but whatever), so I can't comment on that.

What we're really criticizing is the presentation the developers give us, which is pretty clear.  If the darkspawn can magically reproduce with other species, but only women, it's because the developers decided that was the most appropriate fate for captive women.

Edit for Neonivek:  Exactly, it's a trope where women are raped and reduced to a disgusting parody of motherhood by strange aliens who shouldn't really care about human gender.  So common that it almost seems natural nowadays, which is the danger of tropes.

[Neonivek]

Which is extremely common for any species that transforms others.

Like in Dead Space that also happened to women.

Others is giving women an scream attack... oddly.

[scriver]

I'm not sure from where you got the notion that they "employ" the men (putting aside how "employ" and "work for" would be rather de-emotivised ways to describe what would be violent slavery). It's stated repeatedly that men (and my impression was that that was also what happens to most women) get killed and eaten. Darkspawn slave in their workshops and smithys, yes, but people who get tainted don't become "proper" darkspawn, at least not genlocks and the like kind, they become ghouls (or similarly deranged individuals). The only exception to this that I know of is that dude from the Wood Elf Origin, but that always stood out to me as in contrast to the other depictions of corrupted people and animals.

[Neonivek]

Do we have the next example from the current video for this discussion? I want to hold out on watching this current batch until they are all ready given that I had to roll my eyes barely 5 minutes into this.

[Vector]

Yes, this is from Tumblr, but it's short and you should read it anyway.

[Cheeetar]

Yes, this is from Tumblr, but it's short and you should read it anyway.

Neat! Good short read.

[Graknorke]

Yes, this is from Tumblr, but it's short and you should read it anyway.

Could someone explain this but more straightforward please.

[scrdest]

Yes, this is from Tumblr, but it's short and you should read it anyway.

Could someone explain this but more straightforward please.

Basically, the author is trying to say people claim games are either art or business, and switch if the position does not support excluding 'people who aren't like me'.

The usage of said phrase is highly amusing, by the way.

[Bauglir]

In other words, people use "games are art" and "games are business" interchangeably to support positions they hold for other reasons.