Poison's legacy: Newest God of War won't have female enemies

[Forlorn Drifter]

I think the overall moral thought on this thread is this:

What is presented in this game is rude, wrong, and over the top violent. It should not be replicated in real life, nor should the morals of the game. However, this game is made to suit an audience that understands they should not take this as serious, and should just have mind numbing fun with something foolish and over the top. Its so gory and rude its past the point of being compared to real life. Think of it as a classic grindhouse movie style videogame... its for people looking for cheap, poorly thought out moments of shock and awe, which, after time, lose their real appeal and seem normal within their universe.



Wrote more than I meant to. Got caught up in my typing...

[D.D.D.]

There has been a lot of dumbass things said in this thread. If my comment is the only one that has you wondering, then I don't know what to say.

Everything is subjective. One person's stupid comment is another person's superb commentary.

[Breetai]

I had some rant against hyper-feminism, and then deleted it. I'm sure a lot of you here would probably agree with what I would have said anyway.

[pierrot]

The closest thing I can compare the nudity in the game to is something like what I've heard people call "National Geographic nudity" - many women are topless in the games becasue that is the cultural custom (as imagined by the creators), so after a point it isn't especially titillating. Maybe a 13 year old boy would feel differently when playing them (I've only played the games as an adult, but once thought certain issues of National Geographic could function as "Playboy-light" in the days of my emerging puberty [before the internet we had to just make do] ), but the games aren't necessarily created for this audience...but that's a whole other discussion.

First of all, I don't think God of War really commands the cultural service that National Geographic does in order to serve as an accurate comparison.
Playboy, on the other hand, is--in a way--a publication that simply focuses on the female body. (A very unrealistic form of it, but--) One could almost call it a publication of artistic photography, but of course, our culture describes it as pornography.
That, I think, is the long and short of it; God of War isn't meant to create insightful dialogue about differences in cultural norms between modern and ancient/mythological periods. It's a hack-and-slash focusing on brutal combat, and flashy, showy details.
Ultimately it's the creators' decision in what details of the culture to include, and what to overlook. As I mentioned, they could have just as easily made the sex scenes in the game between Kratos and a prepubescent boy. Still just a historical representation of the period, but guess why they didn't do that; For one thing, it would have been extremely controversial. Also it wouldn't fit the hetero-centric tone of the game, nor would it appeal to the target demographic the way boobies do.

I'm not saying that the nudity in the game needs to be taken out or anything, but I do think it borders on denial to say that it wasn't implemented to tantalize and entice their target audience. Whether or not it's successful in achieving that would be a separate issue.

Clearly we're off of the topic that was really at hand, but I just don't have the first-hand knowledge of the game to debate the issue. So I'll concede the rest to you.

I am perturbed by the idea that someone would want to see a domineering male figure throw a helpless woman to her bloody death.

Yeah...see I feel like I have worked myself into this awkward position where my effort to explain a differentiation between sexualized violence and the kind of violence that is found (in most instances) in the God of War series makes me sound like some kind of bloodthirsty violence-hound at best or a rape/abuse-fantasy nutjob at worst. Neither could be further from the truth, actually, and I don't want to see women (or men) assaulted in a sexual fashion in the games I play. In the God of War series, even when playing with a critical mindset, I haven't seen that.

I wasn't necessarily directing my comment specifically toward you. I understand that you're not entirely defending the depictions of violence in the game.
However, my association of the God of War series isn't typically with people who say, 'That Kratos: What a clever caricature of an obsessive man-child, fixated on his own self-gratifying pursuit of violence,' it's with people who say, 'Dude, Kratos is such a bad-ass. I love how he's shirtless, so that even girls can enjoy the game.' (Gotta love college--even though I did.)

Actually, this thread has really made me agree much more with you about male privilege in nerd culture, dsheinem.

[Forlorn Drifter]

I keep seeing the "Greeks having sex with young boys" argument being brought up. True, and it was popular enough for the act to be recorded and such... but there was still a certain taboo around it. Its not something the Greeks talked about in public, nor was it anything they were particularly open to admitting. And these are people who went out and bought their wives hand blown glass sex toys and talking to the shop owner about his fifty person orgy and how Zeus turned into a cow and banged some lady to make a demigod child.

Sorry, I see things and feel the need to say something...

[Menegrothx]

I keep seeing the "Greeks having sex with young boys" argument being brought up.

It would be impossible to publish a game like that. The censors would refuse to give it a rating or stores would refuse to sell it because they would be afraid of losing business because of outraged people. Goes to show you how much this free speech thing really matters to us. If people cant get over some fictitious pedophilia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_stat ... ing_minors illegal in some western countries, like Canada, Germany, UK and Sweden ) then they sure wont defend it in a situation where the practice of freedom of speech can actually affect things

[Forlorn Drifter]

^I'm not saying they should, Im just saying that its not something the Greeks were generally proud of. Still similar as to how it is viewed today, but a bit more common and open.

Another thing, the whole game gives off this male ultimate testosterone trip... yet it kinda craps me up thinking of the fact the Greeks preferred "small" men over big men. So its almost like the ultimate compensation or some such.

[Key-Glyph]

I keep seeing the "Greeks having sex with young boys" argument being brought up. True, and it was popular enough for the act to be recorded and such... but there was still a certain taboo around it.

I don't think this is correct. As Philosophy students in college we learned that homosexual relations between a mentor and his young pupil were an established part of ancient Greek life.

I hate to link to Wikipedia, but it's convenient: Homosexuality in Ancient Greece

[Forlorn Drifter]

I keep seeing the "Greeks having sex with young boys" argument being brought up. True, and it was popular enough for the act to be recorded and such... but there was still a certain taboo around it.

I don't think this is correct. As Philosophy students in college we learned that homosexual relations between a mentor and his young pupil were an established part of ancient Greek life.

I hate to link to Wikipedia, but it's convenient: Homosexuality in Ancient Greece

...Okay. I either got confused with Rome, or I'm way the hell off.

Ehh, whatever. Second half of my last post stills stands for the irony of it all.

[threetoed]

I concur, dsheinem, we are going to have to agree to disagree on what is sexualized violence.

1. I'd like to see that list of texts that support this view of ancient Greece.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ancient ... 80&bih=927

https://www.google.com/search?q=ancient ... 80&bih=927

^^(much of these NSFW, obviously)

I was expecting you to show that God of War followed a tradition of depictions of Greek life that showed topless women, not that the Greeks themselves did. I mean, from the Greek perspective, it probably would have been better for characterizing Kratos as a man without regard for the norms of society by having him use the corpse of a fallen warrior, a la Achilles desecrating Hector's corpse in the Illiad.

Also, you keep saying that there is other, nonsexualized female nudity in God of War, but I can't remember any. Can you supply some examples, I want to be sure that we're on the same page if we're going to be discussing it.

Lastly, how do you feel that critical game studies can engage with the evidence to help us understand how sexualized violence in games affects the players?

Ultimately it's the creators' decision in what details of the culture to include, and what to overlook.

This is a very good point, and one I was trying to make earlier. Defending any of Kratos' actions as being necessary for character development or that they in character has no meaning because those traits and situations were engineered by the makers of the game to happen that way. They could have chosen other scenarios to show that Kratos is not the man he once was, other than murdering a topless woman by crushing her in some gears.