Unfortunate Implications Citation Discussion

I agree, the fact that it hasn't even been confirmed means that it should be nuked as Speculative Troping.

Speculative in what sense exactly? Because if these are just unintentional implications from what we currently know of the series, then I think it's okay to mention them.

Speculative because it's still in the realm of WMG who the mother is, and thus people are potentially panicking over nothing.

I still have no idea what the example even meant.

It's better off burned.

Ok, context from cobbling together my rudimentary knowledge of Inuyasha. Sesshomaru: long lived demon. Rin: child who hung around him for some time over the course of the story. Sequel Series: focuses on Sesshomaru's kids. So what the example is saying is that it's implied Rin is their mom, which would understandably raise some squicky questions. But if it's not confirmed she's the mom, then it is speculative troping and should be cut.

But if she's currently implied to be the mom, even if it's not yet outright confirmed, could that not still be unfortunate implications? Plus, UI can be toned down when new canon info comes out - see Author's Saving Throw and the like. Doesn't change the fact that the current show unintentionally implies something gross, from what I can tell.

We don't trope what may / possibly be in the work last time I checked. Thats the whole point of Speculative Troping.

Ah, fair. I assumed the work was blatantly leading up to the character being officially confirmed as a mother figure, and just hadn't said it outright yet.

And reading our discussion thread on Yashahime, that guess has been proven correct now. Maybe rewrite it as No Yay?

This example was removed from UnfortunateImplications.Video Games:

• Persona 4 has, received criticism for its approach to LGBTQ topics, even compared to previous games. Kanji (a heterosexual male who struggles with society's standards of masculinity) is Ambiguously Gay, Naoto is a Sweet Polly Oliver with trangender allusions (despite being a cisgender girl who feels pressured to repress her femininity in order to be accepted as a detective), and Yosuke, the male protagonist's best friend, is Ambiguously Bi, but all three are subversive to the point of becoming offensive to some.

I'm pretty ambivalent about whether or not it's a good example, but shouldn't it have been discussed here first?

Even if it is valid, it doesn't actually explain what makes any of those characters homophobic/transphobic.

The Atlus games helped by Katsura Hashino, including the recent Persona ones, have come under fire as a whole due to very poor handling of LGBTQ issues. In my experience the implications and the debate around them are somewhat valid, but the example could use some rewriting.

Kanji is a character who looks very masculine but enjoys feminine interests like sewing, which he fears is an Unmanly Secret that will lead to him being Mistaken for Gay if he's found out. On top of that, he has a crush on Naoto, who is a Sweet Polly Oliver then still presenting as male. It's left ambiguous if he's truly queer or not as supposedly the intent of Kanji's storyline was not be about sexuality but rather about Japan's known issues with sexism and overly stringent gender roles. Nevertheless, his English VA was told to play him as a proper closeted homosexual, and the commonsense interpretation is that whatever Atlus thinks, the way his attraction to Naoto plays out would functionally make him pansexual.

Back to Naoto, the story makes it explicitly clear that she is not trans but a cis woman who engages in Sweet Polly Oliver because she fears will never make it far as a police detective in her identified gender, again due to Japan's known sexism issues, to the point that she's considering deliberately misgendering herself through sex reassignment surgery to avoid dealing with brutal misogyny. Later parts of the story underscore her self-identification as female, but it sometimes comes with undertones of Men Are Strong, Women Are Pretty for the sake of appeasing the otaku demographic who want to date Naoto, which turns some people off.

Yosuke engages in some regrettable casual homophobia, including insulting Kanji and worsening his self-loathing issues, which he's clearly presented as in the wrong for. But since he's never outright confronted over it nor does he apologize, it's sometimes used as evidence for how poorly they handled the sexuality aspects of Kanji's storyline. There's an added wrinkle as Persona 4 has a Dummied Out same-sex romance storyline that was retained up to the point of recording the English voice acting, until the storyline was cut for unknown reasons relatively late in development. This suggests that Yosuke was likely intended to be an Armored Closet Gay or Bisexual Boomerang Bigot.

Together it seems less like they're written in a way that overtly furthers homophobic/transphobic narratives per se, and more that the games fumble with these delicate issues and that across the three characters there's a clear pattern of engaging in Bait-and-Switch Lesbians. And as mentioned before some of the other Persona games have also gotten in hot water for several instances of Depraved Homosexual and Unsettling Gender-Reveal trans characters, which stretches how much credit can be given to it being a well-intentioned botchjob as opposed to the creator having deeper prejudices.

I tried making an example about the Music controversy. How does it look?

• Sia's film Music was met with backlash from the autistic community almost as soon as it was revealed over the decision to cast Maddie Ziegler, a neurotypical actress, in the role of the titular character, who is a non-verbal autistic girl. Critics argued that an autistic actor should have been cast in the role instead. Sia claimed that she tried to work with a non-verbal autistic actress who found the experience "unpleasant and stressful", a statement which was also criticized as several autistic actors quickly popped up to question why she went for a neurotypical actor after only one attempt. It doesn't help that Sia's response later devolved into mocking and swearing at the autistic people criticizing the casting choice.

It's Unfortunate Implications à la Cure Your Gays.

Edited by ccorb on Feb 5th 2021 at 6:34:21 AM

Looks good. I was gonna say that you could mention how the film once featured scenes featuring the autistic character being restrained (an action that is harmful both physically and mentally), but I don’t think that really fits under Unfortunate Implications... maybe Critical Research Failure?

I actually did think of mentioning that, but felt like it might fit better under Critical Research Failure (though maybe someone else could write it in a way that fits UI?)

I'd say it might be UI in the sense of "physically restraining autistic child is a good way to calm them down" with no regards for the child's physical or emotional safety. Maybe it fits CRF too, but IDK if the backlash against prone restraint is common knowledge.

I added the example, of course you're free to add another bullet point about the crushing restraint if you can write it up.

There might be an issue with putting it under Critical Research Failure for technical reasons, as CRF is for the kinds of mistakes a non-expert can immediately recognize understand as wrong without requiring explanation to recognize the error being made.

Sadly, far too many people do not realize that physical restraint on children with autism is something harmful and thus it doesn't fit under the common knowledge criterion. At the same time, for many non-experts it's still intuitive enough why it's a bad idea with very simple explanation, so it might still fit within the gray area as Tropes Are Flexible.

Edited by AlleyOop on Feb 5th 2021 at 10:22:53 AM

It's not a trope, though. It's...well, YMMV I guess? Either way, it doesn't qualify as a trope.

Technically no, but the principles behind Tropes Are Flexible still apply to YMMV. WTH, Casting Agency? can include from both people just being confused by the casting (as described) to actively hating it.

Found this on YMMV.Axis And Allies:

• Unfortunate Implications: The color for Japanese models in the earliest editions of the game? Yellow. Later editions changed this to a more neutral orange color.

This lacks a citation, and seems more like a non-sexual Accidental Innuendo.

YMMV.Yakuza 3

• Unfortunate Implications: Some of the game's more infamous substories involve being chased by a crossdresser named Michiru, who Kiryu has to run away from or receive the smooch of his life from his new admirer. Not helping matters is that Michiru also appears to be designed to be as unappealing as possible, enough to terrify even Kiryu himself. While the substories were Played for Laughs upon its initial release, they have since grown controversial due to the growing acceptance of homosexual lifestyles in both Japan and abroad. Sega themselves acknowledged this and made the decision to remove all of Michiru's substories from the PS4 remaster.

Maybe change the citation and I'd be on board with this. I skimmed the article and it only seems to be one person taking an issue with it. Plus TheGamer isn't a very good news source, known for being super clickbaity, but that might just be my opinion.

There was also this example under Author's Saving Throw that dosen't have a citation.

• Similarly, the removal of the infamous substory line involving Michiru the crossdresser was a generally praised move due to the character being rife with Unfortunate Implications.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Feb 10th 2021 at 7:33:32 AM

Well, if the game's creators themselves agree that the quest is offensive and remove it from the remake, that's very strong proof that it's not just one or two people whining about it.

Then again, that's not definitive proof that it is totally an unfortunate implication. This is for what the audience feels like, not the creator.

I'm gonna change the link anyway to the TwistedVoxel article, since that's where the story came from originally.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Feb 10th 2021 at 8:07:07 AM