How do the dominant cultural narratives in art and mass media affect our politics?

Because a medieval setting doesn't need to be a (inaccurate) carbon copy of medieval Europe, if the world is fundamentally different there is no need to have the exact same bigotries or issues.

I think a reason medieval settings are used is to insert more fantastical subjects like magic since it appears to br easier for some to write magic in the place of technology rather than alongside it.

None of this is true. Inquisition for all of its faults allows you to:

• Dissolve the Templars.
• Dissolve the Seekers.
• Elect a pope who ends papal celibacy, frees the mages, and restores the elvish chant of light.
• You can have the Empress assassinated and replaced with an elf puppetmaster.

The thing is you bypass the revolution to complete victory and/or reform.

Yeah, but the point they were making is that all these things (instead of just the assassination one) are portrayed in the game as very extreme and radical things and not the 'objectively best' solution, which is always the middle-of-the-road one.

Edited by Robrecht on Aug 9th 2018 at 8:56:28 AM

Hmm... that's a fair point. Though I will point out that they are radical positions, doesn't mean they're wrong but they are undoubtedly radical and extreme.

Still I don't think that's enough to call the writing "politically conservative", at most they're milquetoast centrists.

The point of DA 2 was that the status quo had become more of a powderkeg than anything else. Hence why Varric asks Cassandra to "take [her] pick" of someone to blame for what happened in Kirkwall.

The point of DA I was that a new status quo has to be built since the old one has been literally blown to Hell.

That 'milquetoast centrism' (I somewhat agree) is, in my view, largely down to what I call Type 2 BWRPGWS (Bioware RPG Writing Sydrome), which developed after Dragon Age: Origins, first showcased in Mass Effect.

In Type 2 BWRPGWS the response; to the criticism that Type 1^note The pre-Mass Effect type of Bioware RPG writing where there were Good, Evil and Neutral options for every moral 'decision' and the player got to choose, but the Good option was always better, with the best reward and the most positive result, the Evil option was always puppy-kickingly evil and/or self defeating violence usually yielding no reward beyond standard randomized fight rewards and the Neutral option was just full-on taking a lump sum of lesser value in order to not do the quest at all. And even when the 'Good' option wasn't actually objectively good and the 'Evil' option wasn't actually objectively evil, they still got treated this way. was way too lacking in nuance and one-sided, was to synthesize it into a system where there is no good or bad option, there's just two sides that are treated as extremes (even when they're not) and usually a middle ground and the player is free to make their choices based on which side they feel makes the better case, but in addition to the reward they get, they will always be punished in one way or another for doing so if they choose one of the sides the game portrays as 'extremes'.

The 'neutral' option, if available, is always treated as the 'best' option, which yields the best rewards and is the only one that doesn't block off content in later games (for games that take choices from previous games into account).

If the neutral option is not present, the two options are still treated as extremes, the punishment is still levied and content in later games is still locked off, but now the player also feels like shit if they feel like neither side is fully in the wrong or the right. (This isn't helped by the fact that the neutral option isn't always actually neutral, but rather taking the side of a third party. A third party which some players will consider just as bad as the extremes, but which the game will present as the best option because it's not one of the two original extremes).

Basically it's the result of Bioware writing moral choices where instead of making the options legitimately equally valid, they just make two options that are equally wrong and just make not choosing between two sides the best choice every time.

I therefore only somewhat agree with the 'milquetoast centrism' label, because I feel 'aggressively centrist' is more accurate.

Edited by Robrecht on Aug 9th 2018 at 3:02:33 AM

Very insightful, I think that is a fair criticism of some of their recent story-lines and while I'm not a big fan of Black vs White morality what they have is hardly much better.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 9th 2018 at 6:01:57 AM

The sad thing is that Bioware's old D&D properties weren't Black and White either.

Well... The Faerûn setting very definitely is, it's D&D so it comes with the standard nine alignments... But when, for instance, you had to choose between the two Thieves Guilds in Baldur's Gate 2, choosing the less evil of the two was treated as the 'good' option, even though the Shadow Thieves of Amn were still, you know, a bunch of excessively evil murderers, just not quite as evil as the Always Chaotic Evil vampires they were fighting.

(You can sorta tell that halfway through writing that sentence, I realized there's really no point in trying to write spoiler free for a 15+ year old game)

That's interesting, I wouldn't think of Dn D as a setting that would allow for much nuance.

My earliest exposure to Bioware RPG's would be Knights of The Old Republic, which ultimately was very Black and White.

Technically, Cassandra is shown to be inferior to Leliana as the Pontiff. She's the Middle of the Road Candidate.

And no one likes her while Leliana is The Messiah.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 9th 2018 at 3:32:58 AM

"Because a medieval setting doesn't need to be a (inaccurate) carbon copy of medieval Europe, if the world is fundamentally different there is no need to have the exact same bigotries or issues."

Sure but most of the time, is just a carbon copy but with minorities added just because in a void, usually this depend on how much the writing want to draw a issue or not and also the medium, games usually dosent make a object of gender because gameplay, books tend to be diferent.

And more often that not the reason people allow magic and dragon is because those as outside element that never shape the sociaty of the setting in anyway, you can call it laziness if you want it.

That's purely the writers fault then. If your fantasy world isn't the same as earth, there's no reason for their not to be equal civil rights.

With fantasy and realism: There are different types of realism, and one break from reality does not necessarily justify another. For example, Superman's powers being unrealistic doesn't give Clark Kenting a pass. What gives Clark Kenting a pass is that Superman's appearance is too iconic at this point to change, and it isn't that unrealistic.

With the Middle Ages: The middle ages were a lot more ethnically diverse than people usually remember. I would, however, argue that gender roles are somewhat intrinsic to the middle ages and ancient times. Basically, in pre-industrial economies it's usually very strongly in one's interests to have a ton of babies, and also bloodlines tend to be super-important. This creates a pretty strong incentive to use women primarily for having children.

Having said that, the middle ages weren't quite as misogynistic as they're usually stated to be and there are plenty of examples of women becoming influential during that time period.

Kinda and kinda not, part of it is a sort of necesary weasel on another: you have a genre build on astheistic of pre industrial sociaties who were so keen on woman or minorities(or democracy) but we want it to build to or apeal to our modern sensibilities so writer have o write a way out.

And more often than not, the answer is....they dont, ether woman are absent or they are present with any issue while still suffering for your typical tropes like skimpy clothes.

a good example of this being down is legend of the five ring: is a blend of japan and china but women can fight and lead without any issue...and yet, they are also suffer for the same deliberate values dissonace of the setting: samurai are seen as only people worth give a damn, fuck merchant,peasant and gajin(in that order).

That is why in general people just sort move around about that issue.

There is also the issue of trying to explain how your setting managed to solve the problem of bigotry. A daunting task to be sure, especially if you want to be respectful of the real life struggles for civil rights.

I guess you could just say A Wizard Did It...but that could send a bad message too. “Racism will only go away if we use magic!”

You also want to avoid making a Mary Suetopia.

I doubt having your completely made up medieval fantasy world have civil rights would stir much of a ruckus outside of your typical alt-right manchildren. Unless you're talking about a medieval world that specifically is set in our world in an alternate history, in which case I sort of agree.

And it's not really concerned with exactly what kind you pick.

You can abolish the Circle of Mages entirely. You can take the middle-road option and reform the Circle while still recognizing it as valuable. Or you can just put all the mages back in their cages and return to business as usual. It all depends on who becomes Fantasy Pope.

And whichever happens, the game's just like, "And then that happened. Anyways, moving right along." Bioware seems very reluctant to definitively take a side on the Mage v. Templar thing.

Which is weird because they don't shy away from taking sides on other things. For instance, Inquisition puts you in a moral choice moment where The Iron Bull, who is devoted to the Qun but having doubts about his faith, must choose between loyalty to his people and protecting his band of brothers.

There is no ambiguity in this. If he chooses his mercenaries over the ruthless faith of the Qun, he lives happily ever after with all of his friends and maybe even gets a boyfriend! If he chooses the Qun over the people he cares about, the game straight-up punishes you. He betrays you later and you have to kill him. Because of course he does; the Qunari are the worst and you told him that his loyalty to them should mean more than his loyalty to people like you. So now you have to fight him and it's all your fault, you bastard.

Bioware does decisively take sides on some things. They're just weirdly reluctant to weigh in on others, and that's awkward when one of those things is the morality of keeping people in cages.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 9th 2018 at 6:09:22 AM

No but if you draw inspiration for some source but without some element, people are going to said "....what?".

Like, if you make a fantasy version of china and they are white people in for some reason, people are going to be weird about it, specially since the only reaosn they are there is "because".

By the way, this dosent mean you cant have diversity in fantasy setting, but it best if you point out that diversity coming from somewhere rather than just being there, it make look less lazy.

I'm actually confused by the "And there's no reason to have classicism/racism/sexism in your fantasy world if you have dragon." Because that essentially means you're gutting the setting of anything remotely interesting. A dragon is nice but it is inherently less interesting than people dealing with more realistic forms of conflict. The White Walkers in Game of Thrones are fine and so is the Blight in in Dragon Age but no one ACTUALLY gives a shit about them. They're background for the real conflicts of politics, religion, and social expectations. Loghain is the real villain of Dragon Age and the injustices of the social system.

The thing about elves in Dragon Age being Jews is the fact it averted erasure. Normally, people ignore the horrible injustices put on minorities in Medieval history to get along with the fantasy of knights and ladies. There's maybe a problem with the fact Jews=Elves in the setting but it's a reminder of them actually existing.

Why the hell would you have to "explain" why diversity exists? The only people that would be bothered by gay and coloured people in their fantasy settings are bigots, and as we all well know, nothing will ever get through to them.

You can have interesting conflicts without resorting to racism and sexism you know.

Edited by Rynnec on Aug 9th 2018 at 7:18:42 AM

The Witcher and Dragon Age got flack from people wondering why black people were in the setting.

Both Andrjez and David Gaider said, "Because it's my setting so shut up."

Good on them. They have my eternal respect for that alone, and I don't even give a shit about the latter.

Yeah, there was a minor controversy over Isabella being "retconned" into being black but David Gaider said that she always was but the developers missed the memo.

Medieval Europe had a ton of black people in it, though. They were mostly on the Mediterranean because that was the metropole and the center of trade, not London. The lily-white image of Medieval Europe is a consequence of Anglophone narratives predominating; and even if England has had POC since the Romans, it was never enough to form a genuine demographic, so there's some truth to, for example, the Danelaw being mostly white people.

Also, Isabela is supposed to be a mixed race woman from an area that's a fantasy analog of Moorish Spain, so eh, their complaining is stupid.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Aug 9th 2018 at 8:33:25 AM