Political correctness in the Witcher 3

[sidspyker]

This has always been my view. It's particularly dangerous in our current era because of the internet and social media where backlash can come from so many directions and all at once. A recent example is G. Kamitani's Dragons Crown character.

OMG THAT IS SO SEXIST!

This game sucks because cleavage. I am an oversensetive child who gets offended by drawings and I demand you cater to me!

 

[Clearly_Balkan]

I really don't care & I don't have anything against it, not until there is a pressure from foreign element on game developers to change their vision of the game.

 

[cmdr_silverbolt]

Okay, even if you don't agree with someone's pov, that doesn't mean that it merits being ridiculed, so let's not contribute with comments which are just jokes.

 

[Thendarion]

By the way, as an amateur writer I can tell one thing. You can't rape your story. It just doesn't work. You create a setting, a goal, some characters, then put all that in motion and the story will write itself. And for example, when one of your characters decides to kill another, the only thing you can do is to shed some tears for them, because it's in their nature. Also you can't deny yourself. The story you write will always merit from what you know in real life. Of course you can sail to strange waters, but then again your story will decide in the end.
I give a closer example. When I was writing 'New Moon', I planned all different kinds of characters first. Then the story started to unfold, and suddenly half of them were obsolete, the other half were in need of adjustments. If I still had put in all of them just for the sake of having them, they wouldn't have been authentic.

Also I think that if someone writes something, then it's up to them how they do it and which topoi they use. Then how the readers interpret it is up to the readers. And that is not necessarily a uniform thing either. Let's say I wrote a poem that praises slavery. Then in the Roman empire it could have been seen as a documentary of glory. In the modern western society it would be either stigmatised and banned or cherished and used in humanitarian campaigns.

What I'm trying to say here is that a work of art, - be it a book, a picture, a film, a game, etc. - has its right to exist on a universal basis while unable incorporate the universal truth by definition.

And as closing let's watch the fitting South Park episode, "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" together!

(Official link provided if you don't have a copy at home.)

 

[amerilias]

Wearing an uniform of any kind do not automatically make you a good man, Believing in God/Gods (or not believing!) do not make you a better man .Being a gay or being hetero do not make you better person .
YOU DO NOT GET REWARDS FOR THAT!
That's why i love witcher games.
Go to hell with PC shit , let's leave this crap for biovare and fuck off so educated pc defenders who do not realize that simple truth.

 

[glenfiddichwhisky]

I personally believe the game needs to be open ended and therefore, there should be little political correctness in the game. One thing that has irritated me over the Witcher in the past is that Geralt has always come off as being a "good" guy. I prefer games like Fallout and Skyrim where you can be as good as you want or as evil as you want. I would like it to where if I wanted, I could play as Geralt the racist, homophobic misogynist.

As a personal opinion, I would prefer to see no homosexuality in the game period. That is the same way that I wouldn't want to see some child molester in the game. I don't get off on two girls going at it and if I saw two guys going at it then I'd probably burn the install discs and delete the game forever from my laptop. Or rather, if I knew about it before hand, then I'd simply never buy the game.

 

[triptrap]

I personally believe the game needs to be open ended and therefore, there should be little political correctness in the game. One thing that has irritated me over the Witcher in the past is that Geralt has always come off as being a "good" guy. I prefer games like Fallout and Skyrim where you can be as good as you want or as evil as you want. I would like it to where if I wanted, I could play as Geralt the racist, homophobic misogynist.

As a personal opinion, I would prefer to see no homosexuality in the game period. That is the same way that I wouldn't want to see some child molester in the game. I don't get off on two girls going at it and if I saw two guys going at it then I'd probably burn the install discs and delete the game forever from my laptop. Or rather, if I knew about it before hand, then I'd simply never buy the game.

no, stop it! don't tell cdpr how to write their MAIN character! Censhorship! Oh the Horror!
and the second paragraph of your post is pretty much stupid. you don't want child molesters, you don't want homosexuals. what you however do not realise is that these two belong to a realistic and diverse medieval society, and CDPR aims at creating such, just as the society we live in. Either CDPR say they want their in-game-societies to be as realistic as possible, in which case they should include homosexuals as well as child molesters and other freaks, or they just create a fucking place like skyrim, with horribly sterile society.

 

[cmdr_silverbolt]

Well, regardless of how we want to play Geralt (and I completely disagree that we should get to play a Geralt like that), the fact remains that this character needs to stay within certain bounds of who he is from the books, and as such any choice included for players would mean that that is something which Geralt might do.

 

[glenfiddichwhisky]

no, stop it! don't tell cdpr how to write their MAIN character! Censhorship! Oh the Horror!
and the second paragraph of your post is pretty much stupid. you don't want child molesters, you don't want homosexuals. what you however do not realise is that these two belong to a realistic and diverse medieval society, and CDPR aims at creating such, just as the society we live in. Either CDPR say they want their in-game-societies to be as realistic as possible, in which case they should include homosexuals as well as child molesters and other freaks, or they just create a fucking place like skyrim, with horribly sterile society.

I should have been more clear. I don't want to see these types committing their acts. Implying that one of them is a homosexual is one thing. Implying that one of them is the town's whacko molester is also one thing. But having them carry out their actions graphically is something I would not want. I am fine with the straight, normal sex scenes that I have seen in the past Witcher games. I would not be fine with any guy on guy or guy on child scenes. The latter, fortunately, is something I know they would never put in the game so in that regard that is a moot point.

 

[Thendarion]

One thing that has irritated me over the Witcher in the past is that Geralt has always come off as being a "good" guy.

I don't really see that Geralt is "being the good guy". He's just being himself.
Yes, you can't kill everyone, because in a real society there would soon be a hunt for you and that would mean your end. A witcher is no god.
Yes a witcher's contracts usually involve solving other people's problems. But that is the socially accepted way to get money, and if you want to keep working as a witcher, you have to abide the law.
It's as simple as that.

 

[pomor]

even if you don't agree with someone's pov, that doesn't mean that it merits being ridiculed

This atitude is exactly the reason why I despise Political Correctenss. If I disagree with someone, I'll ridiclue that person as much as I can. If it offends him/her, so much the better.
Well, at least in real life, on internet forums it tends to get me banned, so I try not to respond in topics I feel strongly about, where I'd have hard time to stop myself from lashing out.

 

[KnightofPhoenix]

I dislike the words "political correctness" as it came to the point where it's devoid of meaning, and generally used by wanabe mavericks who use it to detract from other people's points.

My position is rather simple and clear. You can talk / portray anything, anything, as long as you do it with the appropriate amount of seriousness and sensitivity. Which is something any good writer would do anyways.

 

[triptrap]

I should have been more clear. I don't want to see these types committing their acts. Implying that one of them is a homosexual is one thing. Implying that one of them is the town's whacko molester is also one thing. But having them carry out their actions graphically is something I would not want. I am fine with the straight, normal sex scenes that I have seen in the past Witcher games. I would not be fine with any guy on guy or guy on child scenes. The latter, fortunately, is something I know they would never put in the game so in that regard that is a moot point.

i say: include gay sex-scenes if they're well written and improve the story, immersion and characters, i don't have a problem with that, it's the same as renly with loras, which is only one example. as for child abuse: they might not want to show that explicitely, but ,given that there are child molesters somewhere in the game, and given that some person being a child molester is important to the story, they might at least want to hint at that.

 

[M4xw0lf.978]

As a personal opinion, I would prefer to see no homosexuality in the game period. That is the same way that I wouldn't want to see some child molester in the game. I don't get off on two girls going at it and if I saw two guys going at it then I'd probably burn the install discs and delete the game forever from my laptop. Or rather, if I knew about it before hand, then I'd simply never buy the game.

Here you have it: homophobia does not exist and is therefore, and has never been, an issue. Move along please, nothing to see here, stop your whining about made up problems.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

The world of the Witcher is not "politically correct". Read the books.

 

[cmdr_silverbolt]

@ pomor: I get the desire to use humour while critiquing something, in fact satirists have been doing that forever. I just think, however, that arguments are at their strongest when they're cogent and civil, despite being supplemented by humour. I dislike the idea of minimizing someone else's concerns by just laughing at them- you should at least be able to explain why you think something is worthy of being ridiculed or satirized.

But more than that, we should avoid flame war fodder.

 

[M4xw0lf.978]

The world of the Witcher is not "politically correct". Read the books.

The books are, however. You need to distinguish between the narrated world and the narrative itself.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

M4xw0lf: The way I understood the topic-starter, it was about the depiction of the world and story. Surely, it's not a request for CDPR not to be jerks, otherwise the request would be weird. And the world described is full of evil of all kind.

 

[M4xw0lf.978]

M4xw0lf: The way I understood the topic-starter, it was about the depiction of the world and story. Surely, it's not a request for CDPR not to be jerks, otherwise the request would be weird. And the world described is full of evil of all kind.

This is the fundamental misunderstanding which lead to this thread in the first place, going out from the now closed thread about homosexuality.
The world and the game of the Witcher are meant to be full of dark shades of morality, so the display of unpleasant stuff like torture, rape, violence against helpless persons, and also homophobia have their place in the narrative. And there is no problem with that, as long as the game does not indulge in the displayed acts of cruelty, and the distinction between morally ambiguous behaviour from morally ambiguous narrative is kept. (I don't know whether my english is sufficient to make my point understood, therefore I'd like to explain it with an example: It must be clear, that if character A rapes character B, this action is due to character A's own motives, and not somehow approved of by the authors).
In Dethmold's death scene, this distinction is not clear enough, as is demonstrated by the number of people, who feel that there is something off here.
So now people like me would have liked to see this distinction handled better, which does not mean that in consequence, the violent parts should be left out in any way; only the distance between the opinions of the writer and the actions of the written characters should be pointed out by some means, to make it clear that the writers intention is not the promotion of rape, violence, homophobia, whatever.

 

[blueteainfusion]

M4xw0lf: The way I understood the topic-starter, it was about the depiction of the world and story. Surely, it's not a request for CDPR not to be jerks, otherwise the request would be weird. And the world described is full of evil of all kind.

So you understood the topic-starter wrong. Glad we made it clear.

(Is it me or some people in this topic cannot understand what they read?)