Okay, look, uh. The problem here is two-fold. First of all, you're still treating a joking post as something serious. Like, the intent of Zarek's post was clearly to express that they vastly prefer the female Robin. Like, I want to make this as clear as I can here. They used blatant hyperbole to express that, and if for some reason you are unable to recognize that, I'm sorry but I should hope it's been made clear enough by this point.
The other problem is that you're countering that joke with facts that don't mean anything or shouldn't mean anything, and acting like pointing out those facts means that everyone should concede your point and change their poor little unreasonable opinions. That's the really annoying part here. We are all aware that male Robin is the default on the select screen, and in any other respect. First of all, as I said, that doesn't have anything to do with the subject, which was that Zarek prefers the female version. That aside, should it matter? You're calling it "importance", but what does that even mean? "Important" for what? Would the game fall apart if the female version was the default? That's a weird word choice. Okay, the thing is, Sakurai clearly made male the default. As I said, that's because of cultural norms. And as I said, we are all aware of that, and frankly the implication that you apparently think we don't realize that is pretty insulting. And just because Sakurai has these cultural standards doesn't mean that's something we have to shut up and accept as fact. This whole thing about gender and stuff is just a small aside, but it really adds yet another dimension of annoyance to this whole thing.
... In conclusion, I actually don't feel like arguing about this, but I hope I made clear enough why these couple of posts have been somewhat disgruntling to read?
This entire debate made me facepalm. Not because of Fawriel, but who was being responded to. My stream friends would have a field day with the whole "male is the default" thing. (though I myself, as a male, think that is sexist. True, but very sexist)
Also, why were we only arguing about Robin? Villager and Wii Fit Trainer also have gender alts (with WFT being in a similar scenario to Robin with different voice actors for the gender).
AAAAUUUUGGGHHHH!!!!![]()
![]()
Wii Fit Trainer is different because her default form is female, which makes a world of difference in a game that already has a much larger male-to-female ratio.
...For some reason, though, Villager doesn't bother me the way Robin does. Like, for all intents and purposes, it should, but it doesn't. I'm totally fine playing the default male Villager and don't object to him being the default. I think I'm a bit of a hypocrite, honestly.
edited 22nd Apr '15 1:46:35 PM by Zarek
"We're home, Chewie."Also, why were we only arguing about Robin? Villager and Wii Fit Trainer also have gender alts (with WFT being in a similar scenario to Robin with different voice actors for the gender).
As for the latter, the reason is because the "debate" wasn't about sexism in the first place. That's the tricky thing here. There were a lot of subjects in there that you can form attacks out of, but ultimately the reason why we ended up in an argument about something as unimportant as character alt preferences in a videogame is because of a simple misunderstanding. Zarek stated a preference, Folt saw something in there that Zarek didn't intend and made arguments against these points that no one ever made. And that's how these things turn into flamewars, because everyone starts taking things personally and returning fire instead of recognizing that the situation doesn't make a lick of sense, taking a step back and trying to figure out where it went wrong.
![]()
But again, the game already has so many male characters whose gender can't be altered. Making the gender-mutable characters default to female, while not actually really altering the game's overall gender ratio, would do a little more to increase gender representation.
... You know what?
I don't care. No, seriously, I don't care.
It's a frikkin' slapstick fighting game of Nintendo characters where the antagonist is a giant glove and all the characters are living toys. Why is this debate even happening? Why can't we just enjoy the game?
(Also, please note that Female Robin could've been not included all together.)
I like how we're saying that Sakurai made male the default one because "cultural norms" when the female Wii Fit trainer is the default one and had her trailer not even feature her male version, that didn't get announced until much later, while female Robin at least got a small bit for her in Robin's trailer.
It totally can't be because Sakurai had to make one of the two the default one and just decided to go with male Robin, it must have been because his of culture since who the hell likes male Robin?
This whole debate is so silly.
...How does this even...
Sure didn't stop Zelda, Samus, or PKMN Trainer in the previous games.
>implying he isn't
edited 22nd Apr '15 2:07:06 PM by Demonfly
"Tell them to shut up and have some faith in me." - dead flashback guy

Could you, like, actually make points for your argument instead of vaguely insulting me?
"We're home, Chewie."