Wherein we discuss the ridiculous ways in which comic and gaming artists depict breasts, and the physics behind having fairly enormous breast (two girls in the group are H-cups). We also talk about Mr. Tweet and his ludicrous statements about women and gaming, and comics that we like.
http://sirriamnicast.libsyn.com
Thanks for listening !!!
Yes, I admit it. I’m a giggler. I giggle. A lot. I’m an easy crack up. Ok, not as easy as Jimmy Fallon on Saturday Night Live, but still pretty easy. This can be a problem when I’m trying to play super serious characters, which is something I tend towards because I like playing against type. I enjoy playing characters that are very unlike me. Unfortunately, this means I spend a lot of time saying things like, “Ok, this is the player cracking up, not the character.”
We’re in the process of wrapping up an Amber Diceless campaign, and my character is a very angry, serious, killing machine sort of character. This means that we’re having a lot of serious scenes full of pathos, which make me giggle uncontrollably. This is probably driving my GM crazy.
I’ve run into this problem many times before. In a past campaign I played an assassin whose concept was “the silent knife in the back.” There would be an intense stalking scene, and I’d burst into giggles, because stress does that to me. I laugh a lot.
I know this can be frustrating for my GMs, but honestly, the harder I try not to laugh the worse it is. I can bite my lip, dig my nails into my palm, whatever, it just doesn’t help.
You have to understand I’m the kind of person who gets overcome with giggles at funerals. I’m serious. It’s one of the reasons I generally don’t go to them. And it’s not that I find them funny, it’s just the combined weight of all the serious starts to get to me, and the next thing I know I’m trying to make “hee hee hee” sound like “boo hoo hoo” while covering my mouth with a handkerchief or my face with my hands.
I wish I could tell all of you out there who might share my little “problem” that I’ve found a way to combat this, but I can’t. I’ve just cultivated a series of very understanding GMs who roll their eyes when I hold up a hand and turn away, biting my lips to keep from breaking the mood completely.
What makes a Geek a Geek? Lots of things, yes, I know. But there is one characteristic that I’ve noticed in myself and the majority of my geeky friends that I think is kind of a defining trait of geekdom: Research.
Seriously, whether a Geek is a Geek for only one subject/genre or many, Geeks do love the research. And this came to the attention of my conscious brain the other day while I was, ahem, researching something. See, I just got a couple of bettas, in addition to a larger aquarium. So, I’ve been researching bettas and the different species of fish that I could put in fresh water aquariums, what kind of plants thrive best, what sort of lights I should use, the ph balance of the water, how to breed bettas if I were so inclined… And after about three hours of this I just had to stop and say, “Whoa. Okay, yeah…” Because I realized that I do that with EVERYTHING.
Got back into needlework after several years of not doing it. Within two days I had researched not only the types of needlework I was doing, but also several I wasn’t and probably never would.
Koi ponds. We have one, and I got tired of it looking all algae-filled and generally meh. Three hours later I knew exactly what kinds of things I’d have to do to un-algae it, what to do to keep it algae-free, what sort of plants it needs to be healthy…
My degree in history. This was just one big, long excuse to research. A lot.
Sex. Yup, I research sex. Not only can I practically recite the Kama Sutra, but I can also tell you about how crocodile dung was used as a method of birth control in ancient Egypt and what the first dildos were made out of.
Regardless of how many things a Geek geeks out about, most of us research them lovingly. Whether we limit our researching to the net or actually go into libraries and dig through dusty tomes or ransack Amazon.com or Bookfinder.com, many of us just love to KNOW. It’s the KNOWING that makes these subjects fun and interesting.
Case in point: A couple months ago someone sent me a long list of “How many X does it take to change a liglhtbulb?” jokes. One of them was:
“How many Dragonball Z characters does it take to change a lightbulb?”
“One, but it takes five episodes.”
My husband told this to a friend of his who was really into anime and what he got instead of laughs was a twenty minute rant on how Funimation was destroying animation in general and Anime in particular, how much it sucked, why they did what they did, and on and on and on.
Once the Geeky little mind gets hold of something it likes, it’s almost a compulsion for many of us to find out absolutely as MUCH about that subject as we possibly can, whether it be comic books, movies, anime, fish, cartoons, the Medieval period, Bolshevik Feminism in the Russian Revolution, or even sports. Yeah, the sports geeks are a little more socially acceptable to most people, but they’re Geeks just the same. Deep down, they have that drive to KNOW just like we do.
It’s that passion and need for knowledge that makes us Geeks.
Originally printed on Media Gauntlet.
I hate serial killer movies. I really do. I liked Silence of the Lambs. The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre scared the be-jeesus out of me when I was a teenager. But by and large, serial killer movies just leave me cold. I just have no interest in the Saw or Hostel franchises, I didn’t even SEE American Psycho. And I can give you a half hour lecture on why the premise of Touristas was absolutely laughable.
Now, let me explain to you the two reasons this is strange.
A. I am a True Crime junkie. I adore crimelibrary.com. I read and enjoy scholarly works on serial killers and sociopathic/psychopathic/antisocial personalities. I like gory, gruesome true crime stories.
B. I love horror movies. I do. From Carrie to Jeepers Creepers to Dog Soldiers (best werewolf movie ever), I am a willing participant in getting the crap scared out of me on a regular basis. I even like Andy Warhol’s horror films (Dracula and Frankenstein).
So given these two facts, that I like true crime and that I like horror movies, you might expect that I would adore the serial killer genre. Two great tastes that taste great together, right?
Wrong. And I just consciously figured out why. I’ve been on a non-fiction kick and just finished The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker, and yes, its got a far too “self-helpy” title for my usual tastes, but someone I respect recommended it. And in this book, Mr. de Becker hit on what really bothers me about most serial killer movies. And its something I had a hard time naming.
Real-life serial killers, serial rapists, people who regularly stalk, hurt and kill other people have a REASON for why they’re doing it. Always. And rarely, if ever, is that reason “Because I can.” But the serial killers in movies rarely have a reason. I think that’s why Silence of the Lambs worked for me, because you could see why Buffalo Bill was doing what he did. There was a rationale you could follow, twisted as it was. And in part, this is due to the character being based off of a real serial killer(s).
That’s what serial killer movies by and large get wrong. The killer does these things just “because he can” or “to prove I’m smarter than the police.” Well, you don’t have to kill people to prove you’re smarter than police, rob a bank, steal art, steal cars, take candy from babies, none of which will put you on death row. ”To prove I’m smarter” is a piss-poor reason for a serial killer’s raison d’etre. And let’s face it, without that reason, these films just devolve into “People doing horrible things to other people for no real reason,” and if I wanted to see that, I’d watch reality TV.
Plus, with most serial killer movies I spend most of the film yelling, “He’s just a GUY! Pick up that two by four and beat him like a rented MULE!” This is why I am a big fan of supernatural horror and, truthfully, I don’t care how bad it is.* I’ll watch it. Tell me why the bad guy can’t be defeated by normal means, because otherwise I spend the entire movie rolling my eyes until I strain something.
Not to mention that in these movies, the victim invariably does something to “deserve” it. She’s a hooker, or promiscuous, or cheating on a spouse, or… or… or… In real life, yes, a lot of hookers wind up the victims of serial killers because they’re a marginalized segment of the population less likely to have someone report them missing, but a lot of college girls, nurses, moms, high school students, teachers and occasionally men wind up killed by serial killers, too. And not because they did anything to deserve it.
So, here’s Mickey’s Short List of Serial Kliler films I like:
Silence of the Lambs (but not any of its sequels/prequels)
Curtains (not really a serial killer flick, more of a slasher flick, but not supernatural either)
Man Bites Dog (Belgian film, available in French with English subtitles) This last one is more a dark comedy than a straight serial killer flick. But it’s awesome.
*Okay, this isn’t entirely true. There have been things even I’ve turned off. But my tolerance for bad supernatural horror is pretty epic.
I have loved 9 Chickweed Lane for years. Ever since it crept into the comics pages here in Seattle, I’ve been reading it avidly. But something is starting to bug me, and it took today’s (4-8-08) strip to really get across what it was:
For those of you who don’t follow the comic. The blonde, Edda, is one of the main characters. She is a ballet dancer with a metropolitan ballet company. Her boyfriend Amos is a cellist with the orchestra (presumably) that accompanies the ballet, and they have been friends since childhood. The dark haired woman is Isabel. She is a pianist, who specializes in accompanying solo-ists. She is also sexually predatory, and very in control of her sexuality.
Isabel was introduced when her male counterpart attempted to seduce Edda. Isabel, herself, has since attempted to seduce Amos, unsuccessfully I might add, partly due to Amos’ affection for Edda and partially out of Amos’ complete clueness. Since then, Isabel and Edda have settled into a feud, regardless of Isabel having given up on Amos. The two are frequently featured spitting epithets like “trollop” and “prude” at each other. This makes me uncomfortable.
Edda is portrayed as an ideal character. She’s smart, graceful, and sexy, yet pure. She has kissed Amos, but only that. Isabel is equally smart, graceful and sexy, yet because Isabel does not hold to the patriarchal notion of female sexuality (virgin/whore dichotomy) she is what passes for a villian in this strip. She’s predatory, a man-stealer, “easy,” everything your mother ever told you about bad girls. She’s also, in the rare moments when she is allowed to express something other than predatory seduction, lonely and bitter, jaded and cynical.
And what the hell makes Amos so desireable? You know me, I’ve got the mad love for the geek boys out there. But what is it about Amos that makes Isabel want him? He’s nothing like the other men in her life. Is she merely on a seek and destroy mission for innocence? Is it the fact that he is ostensibly taken by Edda that makes him attractive? Neither of these two possibilities is flattering for Isabel. And why would she keep beating her head against a wall trying to seduce him when it keeps not working?
It makes me sad that the author/artist of 9 Chickweed Lane feels the need to resort to these tired and outdated views of female sexuality for his storylines. I don’t want to not read the strip, but the slut-shaming attitudes inherent in the Isabel storylines really, really bother me. Why is it that the woman who does not fear her sexuality, but who instead embraces it and controls it, is the lonley, bitter, jaded, strumpet who is out to ruin other people’s relationships? It’s a tired cliche that just needs to go. Granted, in Mr. McEldowney’s defense, I will say that Isabel’s male counterpart, while he lasted, was depicted far more unflatteringly.
But why is this even necessary? Surely a writer of Mr. McEldowney’s caliber need not resort to so formulaic and outdated a storyline.
And this is while Edda’s mother, Professor Juliette Berber, is depicted as enjoying sex, and being in control of her own sexuality. However, you will note that Juliette has, it is implied, only been intimate with two men: Edda’s father, her ex-husband, and Elliot, whom she married in 2006 after a long, long courtship. So, it is all right for a woman to control her own sexual agency, so long as it is in the bounds of a monogamous relationship.
Edited to fix gender of comic creator.
Mr. Geek Girl What Rules and I went to Gamestorm in Vancouver, WA this weekend. And boy, did I need that. With all the illness and the to do with NorwesCon, I just needed a chance to relax somewhere with no expectations on my person.
We drove down in a series of snowstorms Friday evening, and just hung out with one of our AmberConNW buddies, Pol. Just being chill.
Saturday we got up and went to play Prime Time Adventures with Pol, his wife Karrin and some other folks. We came up with the series Funkula, about a nine-piece Funk Band that killed vampires. Basically in this world, evil was defeated with the power of Funk, and defeating evil powered Funk in a self-perpetuating cycle. It was a blast. Essentially, in that world The Red Hot Chili Peppers used to be vampire killers, and then right after Blood Sugar Sex Magick they were turned into vampires. Hey, our world, we make it up.
The rest of Saturday I didn’t really do much until a 10pm Horror Rules game. Horror Rules is a game where you play horror movie trope characters. This particular game was a total meatgrinder, where we all just went in knowing we were going to die. When it was down to one of my characters and one other guy, we were given 30 seconds to convince the other, dead, characters that we were the one who should live. My impassioned plea for them to save themselves from my narcissistic, criminal ass for all eternity came to nought when my competition said that he was obsessed with jigsaw puzzles with ducks on them, and would talk about them forever. Bastard. I did get a lovely pair of monster eye deely-boppers out of the deal.
This morning I and several of my female friends attended the “Lady Gamer Tea” which was lovely. We met several really awesome girl gamers from the Portland area. (Hi, guys!) Then we attended a panel called “Why does gaming mostly appeal to guys?” The title of which we took exception to. Fortunately all of the panelists felt this way as well. However, if I have to hear one more guy talk about how girls play with Barbies until they’re ready for something more, I am going to kick him in the shins. We kind of took over, explaining that girls had been more or less excluded from gaming for years. Nearly every woman there had a story about not being able to game when she first wanted to because she had been told that girls didn’t game or couldn’t game.
After the panels, four of us girls ran up to Powell’s for some book shopping, and then came back for some zombie gaming run by my Boy. We only lost one character. Woot!
All in all Gamestorm was a brilliant experience. I, and all the other women I talked to, felt really welcomed there. The gaming was brilliant. People were really super nice. It just a lot of fun! I highly recommend this convention to any girl gamers, experienced or newbies.
(One of the original Media Gauntlet columns)
Okay, it’s no secret. I am a huge fangirl for Nightcrawler. I have been since, oh, 1990 and no, I’m not going to tell you how old I was at the time. I collect Nightcrawler statues, busts and action figures. I have the Marvel Tarot set (Major Arcana only) that was printed in Italy, because Nightcrawler is the Hanged Man. I have pins, t-shirts, posters. I am a huge mark for Nightcrawler.
So can any of you tell me why, when I read the culmination of a storyline featuring Nightcrawler, by Chuck Austen, I shrieked in disgust and rage and threw the comic across the store? (I paid for it, being a friend’s store and all.)
Class? Bueller? Anyone?
For starters, I’d like to know who Chuck Austen had to blow to get a gig at Marvel, because I’m reasonably sure my oral sex skills FAR surpass his. Okay, maybe not, because no one’s ever hired me to shit all over 20+ years of established canon. Wow, three years and I’m still this pissed off.
Ah, yes, Austen and his “vision” of the X-Men as agents of divine and diabolic machinations. Keep your stinky religion out of my comic books, Chuck.
Okay, okay, back to the point. Believe it or not, I have one, and not that Austen just plain sucks, everyone already knows that. No, the point is that one of the CONSTANT themes of the X-Men through the years is that, while they have these powers and may well be the next step in evolution, they never forget their humanity, never forget that they’re human first. Its all part of Xavier’s dream. Nightcrawler in particular looks like a demon but he’s not, and his humanity, as much as his spirituality, are fundamental to the character’s raison d’être. And kind of the point of the whole comic, that regardless of how people look or act, they’re still people.
But this is not good enough for Austen. In his zealousness to be “outré” he decides that Nightcrawler becoming a priest was all a front for an anti-mutant organization, The Church of Humanity*, because THEY KNEW HIS DAD WAS THE DEVIL! ZOMG!! WTFBBQ!!! Ok, not THE Devil, but a demon. Yeah. Bite me, Austen.
Need I go on (and on) about how this totally refutes the years of canon AND the whole point of the bloody character? And yes, I’m aware of the “But Azazel’s just a demonic looking mutant” who happens to live forever, gets banished to a realm of fire and brimstone, and just happens to have hung out with a group of guys whose name is a mangled, bastardization of the biblical term Nephilim. And yes, I get it, its Austen’s incredibly clumsy, awkward, adolescent attempt to “stick it to the Man” by deriding the Christian religion, “Why yes, your church is built on mutants, there is no God. Mwaa haa haaaaa!” I can just see him twirling a false Snidely Whiplash mustache in demented glee. Gag.
Ahhhh!!!! This is why at the top of my wish list for every Yule and Birthday you’ll find the item: “Chuck Austen’s head on a stick.”
It’s also one of the few times I’ve been grateful for the Marvel Multi-verse.
*We won’t get into Catholic versus Protestant views of the Rapture and why that whole plot was incredibly stupid, Nightcrawler’s parentage aside.
Edited to add: As much as I love Nightcrawler, even I can’t bring myself to pay $300 for the new Nightcrawler bust. Not without an animatronic mouth and super cunnilingus action.
For those of you who don’t know, for the last couple of years I have done the Alternate Lifestyles programming at NorwesCon, a Seattle-area SF/F convention. What this means is that I get to do the programming for Polyamory, BDSM, Sexuality, Goth, Fanfic and a whole lot of other things that don’t really fit anywhere else. This includes the LGBT programming (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender/sexual).
Now, SF/F conventions on the whole are pretty comfortable and safe places to be Out, that is, to be openly Gay/Queer. I can hold hands with my girlfriend, for example, and mostly not have to worry about anyone reacting negatively. I have Trans friends who can dress as whichever Gender they are more comfortable as, and be safe. However, as someone pointed out in one of the LGBT Panels I ran this year, the Convention, while safe, is still a largely Hetero-normative space filled with Straight guys and Straight or Bi- girls. My first instinct was to blow this off and be all protective of the Con-space. But after thinking about it for awhile, I saw that the gentleman in question was right, and thankfully he gave me the opportunity to apologize to him.
Because when I really thought about it, he was right. Most of the Con programming, apart from the very few panels on the Alt. Lifestyles track, when they do deal with Gender or Sexuality, deal only with the Binary model of male and female, usually Heterosexual. And then someone brought up the issue of Queer Gamers, and honest to Gods, apart from myself and some of the girls in the Girl Game, I couldn’t think of any Queer Gamers. Now whether this is due to an antipathy toward the LGBT from Gaming culture, or due to an antipathy toward Gaming on the part of Queer culture, I don’t know.
Partially, I blame this on a lack of Queer characters in the SF/F media. I mean, let’s face it, for mainstream media Inara’s Bisexuality on Firefly (if you blinked you might have missed it) and Capt. Jack Harkness on Dr. Who and Torchwood are about it for Out Queer characters. In comics you have Batwoman and her former partner, Northstar in Marvel, and… there’s a few more, but no names are immediately leaping to mind. (Granted after I write this I’m going to get about a bazillion replies giving me more Queer characters I’ve missed. Which is awesome!) While there are more to choose from in SF/F literature, they are still vastly under-represented, and WELL written Queer characters are even more rare.
Gaming itself has a relatively bad reputation for Homophobic behavior, if not actual Homophobia. Now, now, don’t get all defensive on me. It pains me to say this as much, if not more than it pains you to read it. I love Gaming, but there are some behaviors I could decidedly live without.
In the next panel, I asked everyone what they wanted to see, and they overwhelmingly said that they wanted more LGBT panels (held during daylight hours), they wanted a Gay Social or Mixer of some sort. I, however, have decided that maybe we need to have a teeny bit more of a presence than that. I’m looking to start up an LGBT Fandom group to just be present, offer support to anyone coming out or thinking of coming out, organize things like the Queer Mixer, etc…
But I’d like to hear from you guys, Queer or Straight, what do you think? Do you feel that Cons are a safe place? Would you like to see more LGBT programming, or at the very least, an attempt to make sure that all Gender possibilities are covered in panels on Gender and SF/F? Are you a Queer Gamer? How do you feel about that? Are you Out to your gaming buddies? Do you think my assessment of perception of Gamers is fair or true? Do you think that having a more visible or Out presence at Cons (SF/F and Gaming) will help? Would you like to join my treehouse gang, either as Queer or as an Ally? Do you think I’m just being ridiculous and all us Queers need to get over ourselves?
I want to hear your opinions, people.
Okay, I’ve started this column three or four times, and I could not figure out why I kept blocking on it. Then I figured out a couple reasons.
A. I was trying to hard to sound polished and not my usual ranty self.
B. I was afraid of sounding too shrill and alienating boys. Then, after a long talk with my own personal Boy, I decided, screw it.
Now, bear in mind that I’m bi. I like girls. I like looking at girls, at all kinds of girls just like I like looking at boys. I’ve done porn, I’ve written porn, I’ve photographed for a pornographic calendar. I collect pin-up art of men and women. I dig on the nude and nearly nude female form easily as much as any boy out there.
That said, WHAT THE FUCKING HELL IS WRONG WITH THE PEOPLE COMING UP WITH, WRITING AND DRAWING FEMALE SUPERHEROES?
Knowing, as you now do, that I like girls you might ask, “What is she on about?” Well, let me tell you. Their proportions are totally wrong, most of them run around half naked in combat situations, they wear spike heels to fight crime, and do not even get me started on the moralistic bullshit “punishment” of female characters who own their own sexuality. I can’t cover everything here, but I’ll try to touch on most of it.
Footwear: Have any of these folks tried to walk in four inch stiletto heels, let alone perform some crotch-baring judo kicks? I have. The walking, not so much with the judo kicks. It’s difficlut enough fighting gravity in those things, let alone crime. When I wore them a lot, and I did, I would generally have a couple of very strong, very nice guys carry me somewhere I could sit and pose for a few hours. I might dance a little bit in them, and then they’d come off in favor of shoes that weren’t actively trying to kill me. Platforms and coffin heels, while more stable and comfortable, still not a particularly strong base for a fighting stance.
Costumes: Ok, I understand the “necessity” for skintight costumes on heroes of both genders. They’re aerodynamic, hard to grab onto in a fight, blah blah blah… But an awful lot of the female costumes go beyond the pale. As much as I can totally see that Emma Frost’s costume fits with her personality (owns her own sexuality, uses every advantage), is one of her X-powers telekinetically keeping that thing on her tits? And there are some superheroines with costumes that do not fit with their personalities, take Dagger of Cloak & Dagger for instance. There is nothing in her personality to indicate that she would be the type of woman to wear a costume with a neckline that plunges to her pubic hair. Not to mention the combat liabilities of such an outfit. And why aren’t the guys wearing similarly skimpy outfits? Nightcrawler’s a ladies’ man type, and fully aware of how much of a hottie he is, why isn’t he wearing something chest-baring and ass-enhancilng? Not to mention that one of Marvel’s most popular female heroes is Kitty Pryde, who is consistently modest and fully clothed. If Kitty can be popular with clothes on, why can’t Storm?
Battle Lingerie: Even when women in comics are depicted wearing armor (Witchblade, the Magdalene) it isn’t armor, its steel lingerie, battle bras and bullet-proof bikinis. Their armor bares midriffs, upper chests, most of the breasts, the asscheeks and thighs. Yeah, no major arteries or organs there. Come on, guys, seriously, pull your brains out of the little head and do some real armor design here.
Proportions: Apparently a facet of the X-gene is HUGE breasts and teeny little waists. Some of these girls make Barbie look like a cow. Really, guys, I know its fantasy, but Rogue in the Leifield days would have been crippled by the weight of her own breasts long before she could have absorbed Ms. Marvel’s powers. At some point I’m going to do an interview with a couple of friends of mine who have H or double-H cup breasts to give you an idea of what its really like carting around a couple of watermelons on your chest like that. (For those of you who are breast-deprived, bra sizes start out at AA, A, B, C, D, DD, DDD, E, EE, F, FF, G, GG, H, and on up).
Now, I’m waiting for the cries of, “But, but, they’re SUPERHEROES, they WORK OUT.” Yeah, but they look like that when first discovered before the working out starts. And male superheroes get to have different body types. Colussus, Wolverine, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Puck from Alpha Flight, all have different body types, and that’s okay for them, but the women are all thin and willowy with GIGANTIC BOOBS and legs up to their necks. And, while I like girls that look like that, I also like girls who look like me and my girlfriends, all different sizes and shapes.
Granted, being a reader of mostly Marvel and indie comics, I don’t have it as bad as the female DC fans. Good grief, it seems like the majority of feminist critiques on sexism in comic books that I read are railing against DC. Sites like Girl-Wonder.org, while they don’t let Marvel or the indies off the hook entirely, seem directed mostly at the outrageous sexism in the DC universe. The fact that the majority of the female heroes who die in DC are killed not because they themselves are a threat, but because it will hurt a male character. The fact that most of the DC heroines who are hurt or killed are jumped and not given the opportunity to defend themselves, tortured, or raped. Female characters have things done TO them. Male characters are motivated by the suffering of those close to them, usually someone female, to DO things themselves.
Girl-Wonder.org and Friends of Lulu are working to dispel the sexism that is so predominant in the comic industry, both in the comics themselves and in the Boy’s Club that is writing and drawing mainstream comics. It’s because of reading them that made me want to sound as polished and together as these sharp ladies, but, then again, as I was raised to believe, Feminism needs all the voices and my rough, raunchy voice is just as valid as the coolly polished. Not to mention you have got to read the gal who writes “Girls Read Comics! (And they’re pissed)”. She swears as much as I do.
Playing Vincent Baker’s “In a Wicked Age” brought something to mind, that kind of drives me a little bonkers. Now, I want to start by saying that this is in no way a statement about the game or Mr. Baker. The game is really, really fun. I really enjoy the game, but there’s something in the way the world of the game is explained that makes my hackles raise, and it isn’t the fault of the game itself. It is, indeed, a part of the background of many, many fantasy games, novels, short stories, comics and films. It’s the assumption, whether IRL or in fiction, that there was this time without law where people were just completely wicked and horrible. That without laws handed down by some all-knowing Sky Father, we would just fuck, kill and thieve our way into oblivion.
It is an overly simplistic fantasy trope that really needs to just freaking go. It belies an arrogance in modern, usually Western, culture (or insert religion of your choice) that without ( fill in the blank) we’re just simple-minded savages with no concept of (fill in the blank here). It’s also a concept that’s been used to justify the subjugation of innumerable peoples through the ages. And, if we ever get off this mudball and start colonizing space, I’m sure it will be used again. In fact, H. Beam Piper’s Fuzzy novels (Little Fuzzy, Fuzzy Sapiens, etc…) explore this concept beautifully.
In the Fuzzy novels, the intergalactic standard for a sapient race (not to be trifled with) is “Do they talk and have fire?” Because language is a precursor to law and society. When the Fuzzies are discovered, cute little critters who look like tallish marmosets, the only audible noise they make is a high-pitched squeak, which sounds nothing like speech to the humans who discover them, nor do they make fire. So people start colonizing their world, and so begins a conflict. Then a malfunctioning hearing aid allows the main character Jack Holloway to hear their ultrasonic speech, and then there’s a big to do about getting them declared sentient and an evil corporation, etc… Which is sort of off-topic.
So, back to the idea of a time without law. One reason that this sets me off so, is that it is real similar to the whole anti-Atheist idea that morality is dictated/created by religion and that if you don’t have a religion, then clearly you are an amoral beast. Quite frankly, I am far more afraid of someone whose good behavior is motivated solely by their desire to please or avoid the anger of their Sky Father, than by someone who is a good person because they know for themselves that it is the right and good thing to do. I mean, really what the Anti-Atheist people are saying is that “Without the threat of eternal damnation and the anger of the Sky Father, I would do horrible shit. Ergo, I believe that since you don’t believe in the Sky Father you MUST be doing horrible shit.”
Quite frankly, these people scare the daylights out of me. I much prefer folks who are actually good or who have fully internalized the idea of goodness as it’s own reward, as opposed to people who are being good solely to fend off an external threat.
And that’s why that trope bugs me so much. “See, we were all amoral grubby beasts who stole, killed, raped and beat everything in sight until the Sky Father came down and told us what’s what.”
Seriously, it makes my skin crawl.
I’m not a fan of Evolutionary Psychology by any stretch, especially since the majority of its proponents seem to be obsessed with keeping me barefoot and pregnant, but you have to think, just maybe being a decent human being evolved or was a trait selected for because it makes it so much easier to build a society if you’re not killing, raping, stealing from and beating everyone around you.* Granted, as a rule historically this sort of thing only extended to people who looked like you, but that’s an entirely other kettle of fish, and I only have an hour to write this.
So, please, if you’re writing a game, book, comic, etc… give the “It was a TIME BEFORE LAW…” trope a rest, ok? For those of us with even a basic knowledge of history (ancient or otherwise) and human nature (a lot of those folks trying to please the Sky Father do some really fucked up shit to other people), it’s annoying. I almost didn’t play In A Wicked Age because of it. I’m glad I can usually shrug off stuff like that, and went ahead and played it, because it is a super, super fun game. But if the plot of a book, comic, movie, whatever, doesn’t grab me, and this trope figures largely in it, it’s the kiss of death.
*Yes, as someone who has taken loads of Women’s Studies classes and who is a lifelong Feminist, I know. Women in all societies are raped, most frequently by those who look like them (know them, are related to them). However, I will also state something that I shocked an entire class into silence with: “Why does everyone act like no woman anywhere orgasmed prior to 1974 when Roe -v- Wade happened?” Seriously, not all men were raping, horrible brutes through time. Some of them (I might even argue a majority) were probably decent guys who treated their wives, daughters, etc… very well.
