Arbitrary? (Destiny)

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Monday, September 28, 2015, 12:04 (3389 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Making a character female can only be considered "arbitrary" if one considers the default decision to be making a character male, and making them female a conscious decision that requires additional justification.

This mentality is actually part of the problem.

I get what you're trying to say, but it doesn't make sense to me. What you are arguing for basically seems to be sexism in reverse. Does it require justification to make a character to male? That's what it seems like you're arguing for.

It requires justification, in my opinion, to perpetuate the cultural idea that men are more important than women and so it's sensible that the majority of leaders are men, that the majority of characters are men, that the majority of players are men, and that it thus requires justification when one makes a character female, whereas none is required to make a character male.

Like it or not, Destiny does this. It does so more mildly than many game franchises, and so criticizing it for this is, in some sense, to make the perfect the enemy of the good

You don't fix sexism by filling quotas, despite society's tendency to look at it that way.

Filling quotas? This isn't a question of hiring or firing, it's a question of portraying a world. Did the Collapse provide some story reason for creating a postapocalyptic world with a 70/30 gender balance? Or is the world still mostly women by a few percent, it's just that the difference is made up by silent NPCs wandering the tower?

I like Fillion, too, but what Destiny needed was more character development and interaction. That doesn't necessitate Nathan Fillion. I also like Claudia Black, and they've removed her from the game instead of expanding her role. The Exo Stranger is the best character in vanilla destiny, and she's been MIA since launch.

Yes, and we got more character development and interaction. It was Cayde because people pretty much universally love Fillion. It doesn't have anything to do with him being a man.

I love Claudia Black, too, at least as much as Fillion, if not moreso. Her appearance in Stargate was basically the only thing keeping me watching the show at that point. Tess Everis was removed to make features that fans have been requesting for ever. She wasn't removed because she was a woman; she was removed because of necessity and because Tess would be redundant with the new collection systems.

The kiosk features and Tess' character have got nothing whatsoever to do with one another. If anything perhaps the mistake was casting her in such a minor, menial role in the first place, but as I'm suggesting-- that's actually part of the problem!

Also, it's really, really obvious we're going to see the Exo Stranger quite a bit more. It just hasn't happened yet.

I'll point out what I like about that, too-- if and when it actually happens.