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[alexandertnt]

Avoiding Human Exceptionalism does not mean making humans weak and dumb, this is completely missing the point. My issue is when humans kick ass due to "being human", as opposed when humans use some reasonable advantage that they may very well have to solve problems they face. How it comes across depends on the quality/style/context of writing. Some works can sucessfully characterise humans as having legitimate advantages without making it seem like we are somehow magical. I would think it has to do with how abstract human advantages are. Something like "Human Nature" is very vague, and tends to play on our emotions.

Take American Exceptionalism for example. America has a large economy and heavily influenced the world throughout the 20th century. But you can seperate that from "American Exceptionalism", the idea America has a large economy and strong influence merely because they are America.

It can lead to the idea that they cant fail too. "America cant fail because we are a God-given gift to the world", "Human nature will always save Humanity (somehow) in the end".

Unless it's a weird artsy videogame, games are around to make the player feel powerful, so if the player character is human, then humans (or Americans, or ninjas, or whatever group) is going to be the dominant force in the setting. Who would want to play a Pokemon game if Pokemon were just regular animals that looked funny?

It has nothing to do with being a dominant force in the settings and everything to do with how they are a dominant force in the setting.

Interestingly enough, Ninjas is one thing that media often treats as some magical, mystical thing and the common representation of them often falls under Exceptionalism. Are the Ninjas powerful because they are Ninjas (i.e. they are Exceptional)? Or are they powerful because they spent years training and practicing, and they use their training to their advantage (a perfectly reasonable advantage)? Not being exceptional does not imply not being strong. There is no reason why humans cant save the universe, but it gets obnoxious when all the Other species can't because simply because they are not human. Also note here, the player is a Human, but the player is not Humanity.

Games are not necessarily around to make the player feel powerful. Have you ever felt powerful playing something like Ski Free? I can't think of any reason why games have to make the player feel strong. Why is "weird artsy games" dismissively applied to all games which dont make the player feel powerful?




I should also point out that Human Exceptionalism doesn't make a piece of media objectively bad, I just find it blatently patriotic (particularly in video games) and I find patriotism to be obnoxious.

[GreatJustice]

Part of the problem, I think, is that often it seems as though the "heroic" side is considered so for no real reason other than by default, rather than because of any actions. "Why are you the good guy? Because you're fighting for AMERICA!" or "Why are you the good guy? Because you're fighting with the HUMANS!" and so on, with no further evidence of being in the right or of the enemies doing anything villainous (besides opposing you).

[Fniff]

Alexander: I think the term for that is "Humanity, fuck yeah!". I think the thing is that authors are uncomfortable with writing outside of their mindset. Ever hear of writers being unable to write people who don't like books? Like that, but even. Worse because while liking books is a needed part of being a writer, having a human mindset is a needed part of being, well, human. There is a genre of fiction called Xenofiction based entirely on going for an alien or unusual point of view (Usually extraterrestrials or animals). The only videogame that would qualify as that in my mind. Is Deadly Creatures where you can either play as a scorpion or a spider. There are humans involved, but they're actually more antagonists then anything: I think you even fight one. Anyway, it's not truly fantasy, but it's an interesting game idea.

Anyway, my basic point is that most writers are human beings and are not comfortable with writing outside of their species comfort zone not because of an ingrained separation instinct (Or at least, not entirely) but because they don't feel comfortable writing a different mindset to their own. As for the automatic justification of "HUMANITY IS AWESOMESAICE YEAH", I think it also helps as a convenient excuse for a storyline filled with actions by the protagonists that would make them utterly amoral in any other context. Either you have to have characters that the audience likes so much they'll ignore their evil deeds (This is both incredibly difficult to pull off intentionally and incredibly easy to do by accident: think of all the people who think Walter White is totally morally justified throughout Breaking Bad), have the characters actually rise above the seemingly needed violence (Relatively easy in a book, impossible in a first person shooter/RPG game), or you can have generalize the enemy into unthinking masses. What better way then having hordes of goblins and orcs to murder, none of whom possess families or jobs or dreams or awkward conversations back at the camp or a slight crush on their armorer? They're not human, and thus it's all fine to kill them all.

[alexandertnt]

Fniff: I largely agree with what you said (although "Humanity, fuck yeah!" is a very common version, it is not the only way to do Human Exceptionalism).

I dont see what writers writing outside their species has to do with it. You dont have to think like an alien to avoid making humans Exceptional. An American author can very well write a book about international politics from the POV of America without invoking American Exceptionalism. Nothing about humans being central to a plot implies Humans have to be Exceptional in the form of Exceptionalism.

I do understand that writers, being Human are going to favour the human race somehow, and that Human Exceptionalism is used as a tool to do the things you stated. I understand that characterising some "Other" group as being opposed to "us" and thus OK to kill is a common video game mechanic. Thats fine. But I dont like it.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I just think it's boring how Human race^tm in games generally gets stuck with the most generic bonus/perks/unit list/whatever is appropriate. I usually avoid playing a Human in RTS/4X situations because they're so booooooooooooring.

"The human race is exceptionally curious blah blah blah blah they have superior will and have survived against all odds etc etc"

Then they have generic boost to research [cue trope: "Human race always makes warp technology better" looking at you Sci-Fi 4xs] and little/nothing otherwise of flavor.

The way Humans are described in generally every single video game [well, the less cosmopolitan ones, atleast] sure sounds a lot like the Imperium. Yet I rarely see anything as badass or literally iron-fisted in its power to enforce the point that humanity is both strong, able to take punishment, and a curious race of innovators despite the risks of such massive change.

If it's Sci-Fi/Fantasy I find no excuse for this.

Give the humans incredibly crazy blood alchemists that merge dogs with gryphons/horses. Give them a rare group of chosen who have the ability to manipulate elements for Mother Earth. Shit, I'd love that. But no, we get Generic Humanity. Its so, lets say, pedestrian that it hurts.

I also thoroughly dislike humanity being considered the 'basic level' for stats/abilities/etc. Who the hell says humanity is the universal medium? We're incredibly weak even by earth-creature standards.

[Fniff]

No, we're not. We have one thing on our side: endurance and intelligence. They aren't flashy, but there's a reason for why we're the dominant species. Endurance means that we can outrun cheetahs if we want to: cheetahs can only go 70mph for a minute at most before they get tired. Humans can keep walking for days. Intelligence means that we can make ourselves go faster if we want you. In a debate on what the fastest creature is, humans actually won based on this fact: we're slow on foot, but we invented the bicycle.

To reflect this in a game, I imagine you should have humanity as being skilled tanks: we're able to take a lot of damage and dish it back out with our equipment. However, the downside is that we can't defend ourselves to our fullest capacity without weaponry.

I do agree that the notion of humanity being the base-level creature is a crock of crap. That achievement belongs to microbes.

[dennislp3]

Humans are always the base level creature because humans are the most recognizable and familiar races to us. We can understand differences in a race if it is compared to a human because we all know what a human is.

[ChairmanPoo]

Give the humans incredibly crazy blood alchemists that merge dogs with gryphons/horses. Give them a rare group of chosen who have the ability to manipulate elements for Mother Earth. Shit, I'd love that. But no, we get Generic Humanity. Its so, lets say, pedestrian that it hurts.

I also thoroughly dislike humanity being considered the 'basic level' for stats/abilities/etc. Who the hell says humanity is the universal medium? We're incredibly weak even by earth-creature standards.

... I never played the game, but didn't... Skyrim? or Dragon Age? one of those, anyway, have humans divided in different nations, the most powerful and empire-like of them being rather dislikeable for being racist, particularily towards their elven slaves, and using sentient-sacrifice-powered blood magic (which they hadn't even invented themselves, proper) as the load-bearing-pillar of their realm?

[alexandertnt]

But humans are so damn boring I always liked that fantasy/sci-fi themed RTS's let you play the non-humans (even if they were often flat stereotypes like hive-minds, or tribal-race).

Anyways, I don't see why humans posessing superior smarts and endurance relative to the local fauna means that those should be traits humans have in a world relative to other fantastical, intelligent species. I understand why its used as a trope (since it makes the humans more relatable to their RL counterparts etc), but the hard-scifi part of me bleeds through and cant find a real, in-universe reason why this should be taken at face value. Its certainly possible, but I want more than simply "we are smart and strong, deal with it".

I also dont like it when human "uniqueness" is used as a unique trait. Why are other species one whole, singular, conforming culture. Applying a theme is fine, but when every single member of a species talks, eats, worships, fights, behaves, responds in the same way it becomes pretty boring. Its amost like some fiction treats an entire species as a singular character.

I suppose it all depends on what interests you more. I am interested in more details about these "Others". They are strange and foreign and I want to know more about them. But someone who is more interest on the player (or the "us") and is only interested in them upto the effects they have on the "us" probably isnt going to be fussed by any of this.

(Note: You can replace "species/aliens/whatever" with anything thats being presented as "not us". Foreign-culture/foregn-country in something about war is common. *stares at every America-is-Awesome game ever produced*)

I also thoroughly dislike humanity being considered the 'basic level' for stats/abilities/etc. Who the hell says humanity is the universal medium? We're incredibly weak even by earth-creature standards.

Being The Mario is boring as hell, yeah.

[Fniff]

Have you noticed that planets in sci-fi fulfill the same basic purpose as towns in fantasy? Really, if you compress some sci-fi from the scale of galaxies to the size of a fantasy kingdom, you don't lose a large amount. Basicall, bad sci-fi writers cannot comprehend scale and make all species 2-dimensional and all planets consist of a single concept to keep things simple for them.

[Funk]

Rear view mirrors or more the lack of them.
Seriously when was the last time you had a working mirror in a video game?
For it was 1999! yes it the last 15 years i haven seen a rear view mirror in a game that worked.

[darkrider2]

Rear view mirrors or more the lack of them.
Seriously when was the last time you had a working mirror in a video game?
For it was 1999! yes it the last 15 years i haven seen a rear view mirror in a game that worked.

I think gran turismo had working rear view mirrors, not sure if they carried that to the more recent games.

[NobodyPro]

Ever since I learned how to shoot the treatment of shotguns in video games has bothered me.

[Mesa]

Have you noticed that planets in sci-fi fulfill the same basic purpose as towns in fantasy? Really, if you compress some sci-fi from the scale of galaxies to the size of a fantasy kingdom, you don't lose a large amount. Basicall, bad sci-fi writers cannot comprehend scale and make all species 2-dimensional and all planets consist of a single concept to keep things simple for them.

Also, every planet is a single-biome planet with green grass, blue water and blue sky.
Or an entirely lava-covered planet.

And all of them are inhabitable through some means.

...Starbound is the latest big offender here (that I played).

[Cicero]

Rear view mirrors or more the lack of them.
Seriously when was the last time you had a working mirror in a video game?
For it was 1999! yes it the last 15 years i haven seen a rear view mirror in a game that worked.

Cough cough. Euro Truck. Cough Cough.