#1reasonwhy

So is kerzain a master of this MAGIC SUPER POWER or were you struck with a raging dick attack at the sight of all those pale be-boobed elf biddies?

If your body doesn't want the dick attack, I hear it will defend itself automatically.

Wow, in Mass Effect 2, my Shepard just clocked some reporter woman with a Arabic-sounding name for trying to interview him. Maybe it makes some sense if you played the first game, but without context that was wrong on so many levels.

I think there's an option to do that in each of the games. She's a recurring character. I finally decked her in 3.

I have the typical Caucasian female, didn't know the lines could be different in addition with the orientation. That means there are at least 6 different possible flavors to the game. Kinda nice.

I punched her in ME1 and 2, still haven't played 3 but I'm definitely looking forward to the conclusion of the most lopsided boxing match of all time!

I think I punched her in ME2, not in ME1, but I play FemShep, so it's closer to even.

So nobody was really bothered by it all that much? I've killed thousands of people in games and played very evil characters before, but seeing that happen when I clicked to make a renegade choice was one of the more shocking things I've ever seen in a video game. Shepard, supposed hero of the galaxy, punches a female reporter for asking unfair questions. And she got it on camera. I predict the fallout will be minimal, but I hope I'm wrong.

I think you get your butt chewed out more in 1 and 3 than in 2. I wasn't bothered by it because al-Jilani really is presented as just a scummy person in general, a kind of bottom-feeder tabloid type reporter. Plus if you're playing a renegade, it's not really an out-of-character thing for Shep to do.

I understand your shock, though. I didn't really pay much attention that she was female or minority, mostly because I was just irritated the whole time I was interacting with her, but I get where you're coming from

Additionally, in 3, there's an option to have a reporter (Diana Allers) actually on the Normandy, whose reporting style and personality are much different from al-Jalani's. IIRC, Allers is a FemShep romance option as well. There's multiple times when she interviews you, and you have the option of throwing her off your ship at any time. She actually has some really interesting conflicts with other characters, and though her stances can be controversial at times, she's not nearly the asshole that al-Jalani is, IMO.

Didn't bother me, no. But I am not a Slave to the Douche Meter, so even my renegades don't punch her (I'm also pretty sure that's not the ONLY option for a renegade dealing with her, but I haven't played in a while). I think it's also a reference to celebrities finally losing their shit on tabloid reporters and trying to kick their ass. Like Sean Penn.

Any value she might have added is ruined by the awful modelling job they did with her and her own horrible "acting". I can't think of a worse voice acting job off the top of my head in any Bioware game. It's Guild Wars 2 scout bad.

On the punching the reporter thing... it is a little iffy. It helps that Lady Shepard can do it too, so it is less framed as 'man beating up woman' in that way I guess, and I'm really not sure punching an obnoxious reporter really rates on other scales considering how many people you end up shooting/blowing up/whatever throughout the series, which can include unarmed scientists and the like.

But in any case honestly Renegade Shepard is sorta kinda Tea Party Fantasy Shepard most of the time anyway, a lot of the things you do on that side of the meter are pretty obnoxious. I almost prefer MUAHAHAHA CARTOON EVIL like my Sith Inquisitor really, it's easier to take a step back from that for me, and punching the reporter is one of those moments where I certainly don't go "YES HAHAHA" like I do with some renegade interrupts. (Looking at you, monologuing Krogan.)

EDIT: And I can *definitely* understand it being a shocking thing if you don't have the context of ME1. Your run in with her in ME1 really sets the tone for the whole history with her, she kind of ambush-interviews you and asks you questions and twists your answers into things you didn't mean and just escalates the whole thing until the punching her becomes a fairly real-feeling 'frustration' moment. Without that context, your run-in with her in ME2 really would feel kind of nonsequitur and thus more shocking I suspect.

<3 monologuing krogan <3

Also, yes, Allers' ME3 model is freaky. Mass Effect is an ugly universe to start with (imo), and she is ugly even within that universe (and so are poor Anderson and Broseph).

I saw Allers and immediately thought of my Most Least Favorite Character Of Bioware:



He's a total assface.

I wasn't gonna go there but yeah... her character model was really hard for me to even LOOK at. It was like al-Jalani's personality was turned into a face. They did a lot better converting Yvonne Strahovski into Miranda Lawson than they did Jessica Chobot into Diana Allers.

In-game she looks like she's having some kind of fatal allergic reaction.

I for one loved punching out that reporter. I was able to refrain myself from doing so in 1 and 2, but by 3 I couldn't stand it anymore and bam! Right to the moon.

Maybe this is just my white male privilege talking, but I didn't see that interaction as some kind of violence against women thing to rage at. To me, it was an as asshole douchebag shitdickfuckhead getting their justly deserved comeuppance. But I suppose lacking the context of previous interactions with the character could alter perceptions somewhat.*



*I am also horrible asshole.

Haha, I am the same, I cannot maintain eye contact with her or Pigface McBrosalot.

Better?

I just scared my cat with my snortlaugh. <3 <3

I never punched Al-Jilani in any of the games, and I really liked that if you treat her fairly then in ME3 she calls a truce and helps Shepard out (and she even counts as a resource).

I watched all of the punching scenes on youtube though, and if you punch her with a renegade Shepard it really feels like you're just pissed at Al-Jilani for calling you out on all of your bullshit. If you punch her as a Paragon it feels weird and out of character. Besides, I vastly preferred giving her an awesome verbal dressing-down.

I'm with Nebty - it's much more satisfying to eviscerate her poorly thought out attempts at 'gotcha' attacks and trying to reframe your words and actions than it would ever be to punch her. If you punch her, notice, her response is "Tell me you got that on camera!" Because, well, you just made yourself look like the biggest douche imaginable. Admittedly, you're a SPECTRE, so it doesn't actually matter how you look, unless it pisses off the Council - but there's no reason to make things worse than they have to be. I also really dug on how your actions at the end of ME1 radically change the way the galaxy views not just you, but humanity as a whole - and how the Citadel feels.

I'm of the opinion that if you pass on punching people in the face in a video game you're probably broken inside. Luckily I can cure that! Guess how! (spoilers: MAGIC FISTS)

It's completely reprehensible and matches Bioware's tone deafness. The reporter is so tame in comparison to a typical Fox News anchor and yet we're clearly supposed to derive pleasure from it. Of the other punch out options in the game, knocking out the crazies make some sense, but the reporter is just Shepard shockingly becoming a weak willed peevish moron.

At first, I was worried about Mass Effect's "Paragon" and "Renegade" paths being very contrived comic-book "good" and "evil" or "light side" versus "dark side" paths, but (certainly in the first one) they weren't really about that at all. Instead it was about inclusive opposed to direct conflict resolution. Were you going to compromise, to bring people on board, to solve problems? Or were you going to take that responsibility on board and be the change you want to see in the world?

There are two potential problems in the scene as presented. Firstly, there's the simple fact that Shepard escalates a verbal argument to physical violence. Was physicality an appropriate response to the situation? Could you argue that Shepard felt personally threatened and needed to resort to self-defense? You can (and Shepard does) argue this case for the first punch-response in the introductory scenario; the guy was clearly unhinged and getting more aggressive:physical restraint could have been appropriate. But in the interview case I think not; this is simply bullying and I think runs counter to my first paragraph. Secondly, if you are playing a male Shepard, there's the obvious "man hits a woman" problem. This can be problematic because in the real world violence against women is often used casually to reinforce a social order. You could convincingly argue that the scene shows a man escalating to violence to bully a woman back into a subordinate role. As I mentioned before, we don't know if the society of the Mass Effect universe still has the problems that do affect our society, but without a clearer explanation that scene as stands requires a lot more justification.

There is a whole spin-off discussion about when violence towards women is acceptable, and my answer is that it is acceptable only if violence itself is acceptable. Which is actually very rarely the case. But that's a thread for the politics forum, not for #1reasonwhy. Back on topic, is my yardstick a reasonable basis to work from, when writing a female antagonist in video games, do we think?

This gets done a number of times in the story. There's a cold psychopath aspect to the Renegade choices at times that is off-putting when brought into the "civilian" areas of the game. I think if Bioware was more self-aware about this, it could be an interesting dimension of the game rather than Yet Another Dirty Harry. But they are definitely playing these moments for laughs and "fuck yeah" moments.

The thing about science fiction is that there's a lot of room to explore the nuances of things like gender roles and the appropriateness of violence if cultural/technological/epistemological paradigms are changed. I think there's a good discussion about that in the recent turn the Ender's Game movie thread took. But that's where I think you see the difficulties in a team-written game targeted at a broad audience with many different (and sometimes contradictory) variables at play in what makes it to the final cut as opposed to a book which can be analyzed a lot more coherently.

What you describe is one of the things where I find the modesty of sci fi ambition outside of some excellent major arcs frustrating. The lower grade "mature" content simply does not survive casual scrutiny either in terms of how it's contextualized or what role it was designed to fill in the game. I think ME could have done something interesting had the societal components been addressed directly, but in this case it only exists as the old "sci fi fig leaf for horrible ideas". Scifig? Anyway...

I think a great example of how not to do this is in the last Batman, specifically with the pairing of the Catwoman content and the escalation of Harley-beatings. That conversation's been taken apart almost as much as Tomb Raider sexual violence (bonus points if we remember the RE5 racially charged assault controversy), but I think my take-away from these things is that for the most part, videogames should stay away unless they intend to make it a carefully designed core part of the design. There's too much baggage to do it in passing.

I think it rates because of how gratuitously it inserts such a problematic idea. I expect you are absolutely right that "Well woman Shepard..." is as far as justifying most of these things went. But it seems important to me to look at the stuff in the periphery of main plot threads because that's the kind of thing that most people are going react to subconsciously or not really give much thought to unless it's brought up specifically.

I thought it was pretty iffy back when ME1 came out, but having never given a moment's thought to actually taking that renegade choice kept me from giving it much consideration. It's both a contemptible choice in terms of the whole "moral choices!" system and a failure in terms of successfully navigating the "reporter ambushes you" conversation challenge, and I never really considered making my messianic avatar(s) a dickish loser. One of those whole "the ME I judge is my version of ME" things.

Yeah, even if you don't think it's misogynistic, Renegade choices are supposed to make me feel like a badass who gets stuff done and doesn't worry about minor consequences (like Jack Bauer or something). Punching the reporter just made me feel like an asshole. At least he could have redeemed it a little by also destroying the camera and taking the tape, but no.

I guess I was supposed to find it hilarious.

You're certainly right that it rates on the 'woman' part of 'punching a woman'; the second half of my statement was about other scales, in terms of violence in general or violence against civilians or whatever. It's also worth noting it didn't have to be framed this way; if they'd made Future Geraldo Rivera instead of Future Michelle Malkin the target, nobody would have given it a second thought - so you wonder if it was some kind of intentional statement that was just badly executed, or what. I also think after thinking about it some more, it becomes a good bit worse by turning it into a running gag instead of something that feels at least a bit like an authentic reaction in the first game.

Just as a hypothetical, would it have been "better" (or preferable or whatever adjective you want to use) if you were only allowed to punch her in the third game? Making it more of a climax to a long-standing relationship rather than a running gag, that is.

The gender thing is key, though, because as you say without it the scene becomes a me-too LOL MEDIA argument without any substance. And I don't know, maybe their pacing was off but even in not quite comedies like Intermission or Way of the Gun I thought violence towards women was contextualized far more appropriately even if it was used for shock value. But maybe that's more about the quality of the writing and performance, then.

But Jack Bauer is a monster without merit who can only survive as a a rugged hero thanks to the contrivances of TV dramatic pacing. I think you have to be careful what you wish for.

Renegade Shepard seems like just as much as much of a monster, though. Options 1A through 1C for getting information all seem to be torture. But it always works, and works quickly, and he can usually shrug it off with Well, I didn't do any serious permanent damage.

Well, I think that's where the conceit of sci fi is useful for detaching history and a realistic sense of possibilities from the situation for the purposes of a thought experiment. In contrast with 24, where ticking bombs are used to justify everything in a headline-driven context, sci fi lets you create stakes and technologies where you can explore ethical puzzles in more interesting ways, which ME does successfully in a number of its signature moments. I guess I really hadn't thought of Shepard as all that torture oriented, do you have specific examples in mind?

There's the "third degree" puzzle in ME2 with Thane and Captain Bailey.

This is one example that fairly leaps to mind.

edit: harumph, Jason beat me to it.

That's interesting. I don't think I've ever done anything but the "Start Talking" insta-intimidate or something. Anyway, probably wandering far afield, I was just curious relative to how the big picture stuff is successfully present as science fiction in nature. Thanks.

Yeah, last night back-to-back I did that one and Garrus' loyalty mission where you let Garrus torture Harkin to get information on Fade. Maybe there isn't that much torture in the game overall, but it sure feels like there is right now.

I played through it with the Russian female voice, and there were definitely lines that would have made no sense in any other voice. References to "the Motherland" and such. She did still give Shauni a really hard time throughout the game, which I thought was great because one of my first reactions to the game was "WTF did they do to Shauni?"

Also, the Russian voice made it even funnier that she still considered Burt Reynolds a modern-day superstar. Like Germans-and-David-Hasselhoff funny.

I didn't doubt it was present, fwiw, I was just curious about why Jack Bauer was a positive point of reference.