Unfortunate Implications/Video Games: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Resident Evil 5]]'' features [[Mighty Whitey|a white American who saves Africa]] from [[Scary Black Man|Scary Black Zombies]] with help from [[But Not Too Black|a very light-skinned African woman]]. And later in the game you fight your way through several African villages swarming with African zombies in grass skirts and clay masks howling incoherently while throwing spears. An in-game journal by one of the villagers before they were infected with [[The Virus]] attempts to justify this by pointing out the strangeness of this behavior, and it is actually one of the first signs that something has gone terribly wrong, but it still plays directly into stereotypes associated with Africans, and the message becomes that villagers would only act like traditional Africans before Europeans arrived if they were infected by a virus that brings out that reduces them to animalistic monsters. Not to mention the fact that they are all helpless and enslaved to a blonde-haired blue-eyed [[Social Darwinist]], until said white American arrives to save the day. Even though he has a black African partner and another important black ally, it still reads like a typical [[Mighty Whitey]] setup.

* In ''[[Dead Rising]] 2'', the only Asian person in the story, Rebecca, is [[Butt Monkey|treated the worst by the narrative]]: she's kidnapped (twice), reduced to helplessness by injury, and ends up cold-bloodedly murdered by [[The Mole]]. By the same [[Incredibly Lame Pun|token (ha)]], another black main character is a gold-wearing, pimp-dressed, jive-talking stereotype who becomes the [[Big Bad]] and kidnaps two (white) women. One of the other black characters is a female survivor who can be encountered beating the crap out of zombies. However, her name is LaShawndra and she's basically a Fat [[Sassy Black Woman]] stereotype.

{{quote| "What do you mean what kinda' accent is dis? It's a ''troll'' accent. I swear, Jamaican meh crazy."}}

** In ''[[World of Warcraft]],'' this continues to the Alliance expansion race, the Draenei (Teutonic or Slavic depending on what the accent sounds like to whoever it is you're asking), while the expansion's Horde race, the Blood Elves, meet a different stereotype (metrosexual) -- more consistent with the Alliance original races' behaviors. This aspect of this may be a [[Justified Trope]] in that the Draenei and Blood Elves are supposed to be bastions of the opposing faction within their own ("human" Alliance versus "alien" Horde), in turn consistent with each of these races being the only race in their faction to have a class previously exclusive to the other. Both were pretty [[Broken Base|controversial]].

* [http://www.arcadiafan.de/Kirby/Images/sp614.png Wham Bam Rock], from ''[[Kirby]] Super Star''. In the DS remake he was [http://wikirby.info/images/8/84/Wham_Bam_Rock.JPG redesigned] to look more like a Shakokidogu (an ancient clay figure from Japan with an extremely stylized female form) and less like a blatant [[Ethnic Scrappy]]. Good move, I say.

** Wham Bam Rock's appearance, meanwhile, was switched over to [[One-Winged Angel|Wham Bam]] ''[http://images.wikia.com/kirby/en/images/5/59/Whambamjewel.png Jewel]'', his on-steroids counterpart from "Helper to Hero". The lips are less massive, and he has three eyes, but he still resembles a blackface a bit too closely for comfort.

** And one of the two good Valkyria is {{spoiler|a little girl who has the social graces of a wild animal until she's civilized by your team}}. Yeah. Ouch.

*** Not to mention that the Darcsen function in the plot as an Expy for the Jews during WWII. Except they look Japanese and there's no Japanese Expy country or race, and so it gives the impression that the writers/character designers ''replaced'' the Jews with the Japanese for the purposes of the narrative.

** An enemy soldier has a touching death scene in a chapter entirely designed to humanize the opposing army and help the player realize that even the bad guys are people. Squad 7 members who die have a brief, but tear-jerking and characterful last words scene. {{spoiler|Selvaria and Faldio}} kill themselves after heartfelt speeches that show the player their plight. The entire Gallian Army is completely disintegrated. [[A Million Is a Statistic|No one cares.]] Enemy Mooks are people, but ally Mooks are cannon fodder.

**** If fact you're supposed to ''feel good'' because she took out a number of the [[Jerkass]] higher-ups; remember that this is 5-15% of a ''nation'' being killed right there.

** When Selvaria first steps out onto the field, she tells her men, "There lies Gallia. ''Claim her.''", and they rush forward, but it says even uglier things about the Empire that it finds it appropriate to use rape metaphors to encourage its soldiers.

* Sony's ''[[Fat Princess]]'' looks like it's got a couple of [http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=y1IQfLItmBE issues...]

** ''Fat Princess'' also got in trouble with Japan, due to her artwork only having four fingers. While not having much to do with the whole Japanese 'Four Is Death' belief, it touches on the fact that the term 'yotsu' (four) is a discriminatory term for 'burakumin'--people who had lesser-jobs (like leather tanning), and were considered 'unclean', according to Shinto beliefs.

*** The four fingers thing also has something to do, apparently, with the fact that another lower-class job was fish cleaning, and there was the implication that people with such lowly jobs were unintelligent fools, likely to cut a finger off because they work with knives all day.

*** The Oddworld games had the same problem; poor Abe ended up conveniently losing a finger between Abe's Oddysee and Abe's Exodus. Although, I remember the offended lower-class workers being meat packers.

* In the ''[[Atelier Series|Atelier]]'' series: . There are a variety of "fairies" that you can hire in the early games to assist with labwork and whatnot and to help gather materials. Unfortunately, the least competent one... is the one dressed in black. And he's often depicted in [[All There in the Manual|supplementary material]] as having ''dark skin''. Oh ''man''...

* In ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 3'', The Boss comes across Naked Snake disguised as Major Raikov (who is implied to be the lover of [[Depraved Bisexual|Colonol Volgin]]) and disdainfully asks why he is wearing a "fairy disguise" and mockingly warns him that it might "rub off on [him]". [[Hideo Kojima]] was clear in the director's commentary that she was actually talking about [[Fake Defector|herself]], but the translators decided to have some fun with the line.

** [[Black Dude Dies First]]. In ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'', it was the DARPA Chief and in ''MGS2'' it was Scott Dolph. The former's death is even more egregious when one considers that the DARPA Chief who dies on-screen is an impersonator and that the real dies ''before'' the events of the game.

*** ''MGS2'' pulls this ''twice'' - {{spoiler|the first [[Plotline Death]] of the second chapter is Peter Stillman}}.

*** Although Dolph and Fortune ''are'' both dead by the fourth game.

*** Not to mention Vamp's being Romanian and having some [[Magical Native American|bizarre magical traits]] (you can explain the healing with {{spoiler|nanomachines}}, but what about walking and dancing on water?)

** In a really odd exception, one player character was named "Jesus Christ", was an Empathic Defender (ie, healer), dressed in white robes, had a beard and a pearly white aura. When told "I can't believe the devs let you go this long with that name" (he was level 50, the highest), his response? "Neither can I!"

*** This troper has seen Jesus Almighty, Mecha Messiah and Jumping Jesus, all above level 20.

** Granted, it doesn't look perfectly human (it's eyes are grey with no pupils), but still...

* The designers of ''[[Final Fight]]'' were told that it was a cultural taboo in America to show a male hero hitting women, so instead of female gang members, the enemy characters of Poison and Roxy were [[Bowdlerization|replaced by male characters Sid and Billy in the SNES version]]. Poison and Roxy were brought back in every subsequent adaptation, but since then they've been canonically depicted as shemales, possibly because Capcom thought it would be less controversial or because they just found beating up transvestites funny (or though Americans wouldn't mind beating up transsexuals where they would mind beating up women, which is ''also'' problematic). To add further confusion, Poison's and Roxy's genders have switched between being female or shemale depending on the localization. Both of them are still considered shemales in Japan, but Poison is now a post-op male-to-female transsexual and Roxy is completely female apparently.

** In ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'', however, the black male is the [[Only Sane Man|Most well-balanced and well-adjusted member of the group.]] However, the black female wears traditional tribal garb and attacks with a spear. Talk about sidestepping a pot hole and falling off a bridge...

* In the first ''[[Suikoden]]'' game, there are 108 Stars of Destiny who are characters that are the keys to stopping the evil empire and saving the world. All of these characters are light-skinned except for one who is [[Ambiguously Brown]] and named ''Blackman''. Yeah, let that one sink in for a while.

** The Tellius games also featured the lovely Republic of Begnion, a cabal of evil senators destroying the country from within. And the only one who can stop them is... ''the heir to the theocratic royal family.'' To quote the Lemuria entry above: take that, democracy!

* ''[[Rogue Galaxy]]'' has only one planet with black people, who also turns to be the one planet devoid of technology (since the people have an aversion for it); the population is also savage, believes in human sacrifices, etc. Lilika (the one person from the planet who joins the party) is one of the most well-loved characters of the game, being sensate and at the same time a strong, independent woman. It's half a subversion, half played straight.

* In ''[[Myst]]'''s Stoneship Age, the Black Ship flag symbol resembles the Islamic star-and-crescent symbol.

* In ''[[Time Crisis]]'', every character that deducts 1,000 points when shot (the other player character, Captain Rush from ''Time Crisis 4'') has been male. Every character that deducts 5,000 (Christy Ryan from ''II'', Alicia Winston from ''3'') has been female. Possibly justified with [[Distressed Damsel|Christy]], but 5,000 points seems a little harsh for [[Action Girl|Alicia]], a rather competent soldier (as we get to see in the console-exclusive Rescue Mission mode in ''3'') who, in a series first, is a female who ''[[Subverted Trope|doesn't]]'' get kidnapped.

** Though the reason Peach is the hero is because she can ''control'' her emotions, while every other character can't. Subverts it rather well.

*** Since the paths Mario takes through the water are indicated by dotted lines that he still has to swim along, an alternate interpretation would be that the map is updated when Mario discovers preexisting paths at the end of the stage.

** At one point you visit a Selkie town. Talking to the locals will get you pickpocketed without any indication, other than checking your wallet to see that you lose a random, but small, amount of money per conversation. Of course, they don't do this to you if you're a fellow Selkie.

*** As with all first-time visits to important locations, it gets a mention in the yearly quest journal. [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|Even if you're playing as a Selkie]], it describes the sick feeling you got in the pit of your stomach when you realized you'd been pickpocketed. Even the Selkies don't like the Selkies...

** Jynx is currently the ''only'' Pokemon who's physical appearance was changed because of this. Originally, she looked like [http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/e/e1/Lorelei_Jynx.png this.] Naturally, this caused many people to compare her design to that of "Blackface" . Nintendo soon redesigned Jynx's appearance so now it looks like [http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/a/ae/Jynx_anime.png this.]

** The Pokemon universe's only known Italian is a Mafia Don. ''Ouch.''

** There was also the fact that Samus seemed to freeze up and lose herself when she discovered that Ridley had somehow returned from the dead, despite the fact that various other sources, even the ''Metroid'' Manga, which is what this game apparently directly used as source material, had Samus stop being afraid of Ridley.

*** Take also into account the fact that Samus has killed Ridley ''four times'' before ''Other M'' - and not frozen up on any of those occasions. The makers of ''[[Other M]]'' say they didn't take the stories of the ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' games into account, which still leaves two times. Defenders of the game claim that a) she thought that the last time, he was dead for sure, b) she was emotionally vulnerable after the events of Super Metroid, c) she realized that {{spoiler|she was partially responsible for this Ridley's development}}, or d) some combination of the above.

*** That was probably just an oversight, since the chronology of the games obviously doesn't coincide with the order they were released in. Still kind of odd, though.

** A social worker won't take away a teen-aged Sim and you can't adopt a teen Sim. Considering how many [[Real Life]] teenagers don't get adopted due to their age, and that no matter how neglected a teen Sim may be yet social workers won't come to their aid.. This comes off as more than a little unfortunate.

* [http://jayisgames.com/archives/2010/11/doodle_devil.php Doodle Devil] comes across as very misogynistic since certain positive elements can be made using Man, [[Double Standard|but not with Woman]]. The only things Woman gets associated with bury the game even further into this trope.

* ''[[Mass Effect]]'''s treatment of homosexuality is a bit questionable. In the first game the limited cast made even the presence of a [[Discount Lesbians|Discount Lesbian]] a relatively positive sign, but when ''[[Mass Effect]] 2'' came out with [[Loads and Loads of Characters]] with numerous chances of interspecies romances with very un-humanlike aliens the absence of male homosexuality has become uncomfortably conspicuous. What's even worse is that ME2 confirms that female Commander Shepard can indeed be lesbian with human women, but gives her the most shallow "romance" subplot (if it can be called that), and the game does not treat it as a "real" romance - it does not bring the Paramour achievement<ref>which, admittedly, is described as being for romances with squadmates</ref> and is not considered cheating on your ME1 partner, like every other option. Bonus points for a [[Depraved Bisexual]] [[Discount Lesbians|Discount Lesbian]] serial killer in another subplot.

** There's also the issue with [[Word of God]] saying a player may not choose to pursue a homosexual relationship because Shepard is too predefined a character, and his sexual orientation was decided. But players may decide upon the history, first name, appearance, gender, class, and personality of Shepard. Pretty much the only thing that cannot be chosen is the voice and that Shepard is going to save the galaxy. This does nothing to explain the fact that Female!Shepard can be exclusively lesbian. So it seems the only trait of Shepard's they decided to define is that ''he's'' no-way no-how gay. Ouch.

*** They seem to be trying to rectify this with the third installment, which will finally have a male homosexual romance option, though only adding it to the third one has [http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/515 its own issues]. It's completely possible to have played a male Shepard as gay throughout ME1 and ME2, he'd just also be a [[Celibate Hero]] on top of being gay, but that just falls into this ''again''.

*** There are some ''really'' bad implications with the gay male LI in ME 3. At the beginning of the game, he's still grieving for his dead husband (you walk in on him listening to his final message and ''weeping'') who died less than a year ago. By the end of the game, you're shagging. And Shepard is the one who convinces him to move on.

** Jacob is the only black love interest in the series {{spoiler|and he's the only one to cheat on Shepard and actually gets another woman pregnant at that.}}

*** {{spoiler|The change -of-tune is all the more egregious as, depending on the player, you can have already ended the only major conflict between organics and synthetics and befriended a synthetic AI.}}

 

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