Do you think that ending of WOL is sexist?

General Discussion
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A little while ago I invited a feminist female friend of mine to play SC2. Initially we started just playing multiplayer for a bit. However she found she enjoyed the game so decided to play through WOL. All seemed well at first. However when she got to the end she said she took offense over the ending. Her reasoning is that it is because a bunch of armored men are standing over a naked woman. I explained to her the context. She said she is aware of that. However she said that regardless she thinks they should have written this scene differently so that Kerrigan wasn’t in such a humiliating position.

Personally I think there is nothing wrong with this scene and I don’t think its sexist given the context. Besides Kerrigan was already naked throughout the entire fight. Just in a less sensual way then we are used to as humans. However I am a guy so maybe I lack the same sensitivity women would to this kind of thing? Does any here feel like this scene was kind of sexist on some level?

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I will answer your question indirectly. I am glad WOL was released in 2010.

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No way no how. Why did you have to self inflict yourself having a feminist tag along on a gaming experience she knows nothing about and wouldn’t value? You should have known what to expect from her in doing it. No surprises.

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Cause she specifically told me herself she was a feminist.

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She’s treated too often as an object outside of the game - I remember multiple books she’s in/on has a very skeevy portrayal, particularly focused on her rear end for no actual good reason. Which just isn’t great; but the game doesn’t do this much - it’s only really in the ending.

When she’s declared ‘dead’, her line is uh, boys, how 'bout that evac?; which is distress more generically, but then she becomes a motivation for Jim, not even a full object. She reappears and this makes it better, though.

In the rest of the game’s story, however, she isn’t - she’s treated as An Other more broadly, except by ex. Jim who knew her before infestation. It creates an interesting contrast to work with between the people that talk about her, but at this time she’s treated as more closely a force of nature.

There is no reason why she should be naked - as an easy example, let’s look at Stukov, he got infested with his clothes on. Why is he treated differently in that regard?
It’s horrible.
The answer for her to be clothesless in that scene is simply “because we felt like it” and the reason to feel like it is because there was a desire to have her be that way, vulnerable, and nothing is more shorthand for vulnerable than being naked. But also it just makes her in distress and out of control again, robbing her of agency and making her be a prize instead of a human being.

She was armored by nature of alteration. While technically part of her flesh, we consider most of the getup to be a substitute for clothes because it exhibits multiple properties of clothes or armor.
(I think it’s a terrible outfit, but it is ‘an outfit’.)

In summary;

Yes. She’s put in a position of weakness and this doesn’t do anything narratively. It’s weak and pointless and it feels almost like “because naked lady!” to plenty.

However I am a guy so maybe I lack the same sensitivity women would to this kind of thing?

Yes.

Does any here feel like this scene was kind of sexist on some level?

Yes.

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daily reminder that being sexy is not sexist

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It a how nature things go

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Im not see any sexist here

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Edit I misunderstood. She is very nice in general and seemed interested in playing so I figured why not?

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Sounds like your friend is looking for reasons to be outraged. She needs to calm down and think about things. Because I guarantee it’s going to cause her a lot of grief in the future. A big part of being an adult is being able to see context and accept it.

You’re not lacking sensitivity, she just has a problem. And frankly, why is being naked humiliating? That’s a weird puritanical stance…

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I asked her that exact question. According to her its less that she is naked and more so that she is in a position of vulnerability and weakness. Thing is. She did just try to mass murder a bunch of people. The people in that final scene barely survived with their lives. I was second guessing myself since I figured that maybe as a guy I won’t be as sensitive to this, but most women probably agree the ending is not sexist given the context.

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Sounds like she has some sensitivity there.

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Are you friends with anita Sarkisian?

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This was your first mistake right here.

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This was your first mistake right here.

She is usually a very nice person, but has some takes that raise some a lot of questions…

Are you friends with anita Sarkisian?

Well I don’t know if I would go that far, but sometimes I wonder. She also said that she felt there wasn’t enough strong female representation in WOL, but was a bit lenient about that since WOL was made in 2010. However last I checked Kerrigan even at the beginning of Hots is one of the most powerful characters in the game. Without all her zerg powers she still has significant psionic powers that could overpower any other of the male characters in a 1v1. She is also incredibly intelligent and skilled at commanding large zerg armies when she has them at her disposal. So tbh, I don’t think there is a lack of female representation either.

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I’ve personally never once met a feminist that wasn’t absolutely insufferable. Though, that’s more than a little m fault. I’m a quite masculine guy. I’m also of the opinion that of the things you can be, a feminist is probably the stupidest.

Yeah, there’s also not a lot of “strong female representation” in:
The military
Law enforcement
Construction and trades
The pro fighting circuit

These just aren’t super feminine rolls. I dunno why we’d expect them to be played by a bunch of females in movies and video games when they don’t do them in real life.

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Well tell her that Kerrigan is the queen beach of the universe that everybody fears only dumb prison inmates and a man willing to have his willy chopped off during love have the courage to kill her without knowing how lethal she remains after the keystone.

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Trust me. I have had that experience with many of them, but not all of them all THAT bad. She was very polite to me when she expressed her views and wasn’t trying to get me to stop playing SC2 and wasn’t mean to me for disagreeing.

These just aren’t super feminine rolls. I dunno why we’d expect them to be played by a bunch of females in movies and video games when they don’t do them in real life.

Be careful. You could get canceled these days for saying that. Not that I disagree fyi.

Well tell her that Kerrigan is the queen beach of the universe that everybody fears only dumb prison inmates and a man willing to have his willy chopped off during love have the courage to kill her without knowing how lethal she remains after the keystone.

Thats very similar to what I told her. However she mentioned there is no women of color and lesbians in the cast. And she is more concerned about a there being a diverse cast then one really powerful female character. She does acknowledge Kerrigan’s power though and says she likes kerrigan as a character.

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Bro, I don’t wanna be rude but her statment that starcraft as a franchise doesn’t show female empowerment is completely baseless.
SC1, is literally the story of how an abused and abandoned woman becomes the queen beach. SC2 has many female character units like banshees, Liberators, ghosts(female skin), adept protoss leaders. Wol has nova and the fricking Kerrigan as the final boss where love triumphs hate and forgiveness and what not. Hots is literally the second coming of Kerrigan and lotv is literally Kerrigan achieving godhood and those African American protoss being freed from slavery. I think her problem with wol specifically is that right thing to do is you choose a creepy black guy over nova. If tosh was a female African American i don’t think she would say that and that’s racist. Tell her I said tosh lives matter. Its all female empowerment in a game done right.

Wait what, women of color? Adepts aren’t women? They’re alien colored.

Lesbians? Brah… fr… starcraft don’t have time to develop romantic relationships what with Kerrigan, Mengsk and Amon.

I’m sure they could jk rollin a gay gandalf as swann or valerian if it was more like mass effect series gameplay.

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You make a great point about Tosh. I will tell her that. I agree with you about the first part. Kerrigan is the easily the single most powerful character in the SC2 universe at the end except for maybe that Xelnaga. And she is very powerful even at the start of Hots in many ways.