July 10th, 2012
Well said thoughts…
“Both these series star female characters in a relatively female-heavy cast, and so they both fly through the Bechdel Test easily. But…there’s more to them. In neither series is there an attempt to turn a sexualized male gaze on the characters. It really doesn’t matter how “strong” a female character is – when we are forced to stare continually at their crotch or chest, there’s a different story being told – “Yes, she could kick your ass, but it’s okay, you could still have sex on her, so you’re still superior to her..” – — Erica Friedman reviews Bodacious Space Pirates
This sums up my thoughts on Ar Tornelico perfectly regarding the costumes the reyvateils are wearing. It’s also why “No, they are not empowered! I don’t care if they can destroy the world.”
Ar Tonelico ★ Misogyny ★ Sexism
There is the USS Make Shit Up, true. No argument there.
TW for objectification, denial of sentience
As for Niven. Well…Ringworld/Engineers has women explicitly referenced (by characters) as sex objects. Kzinti females are not women because the males have bred them for nonsentience.
I wish I was kidding. :-(E>
It’s very sad when you are not kidding :c and I bet these books have won all kinds of awards and stuff.
Ugh. Star Trek technology is too worthwhile to be used to objectify women. I’m sorry–reminds me of Larry Niven & Ringworld. He had a prizewinning concept, which he then proceeded to crap sexism all over. :-(E>
[KA101 has some of the Star Trek games and thinks they’re worthwhile]
What I mean by Star Treck technology is that it has only the minimal connection to actual science and it’s just basically made up for plot convenience. :3
/me has a few Larry Niven novels from a long time ago… I wonder if I should read them.
But I thought I read a review about how the Reyvateils are supposed to be some sort of supernatural/engineered[?] guardian race.
…Whose members can’t act for themselves.
I guess the guarding-thing is basically for show […OK, probable double meaning there] and whatever it is that’s being guarded is basically on the honor system?
Series’ plot seems to fail internal consistency. >-(E>
Reyvatails were first made by a dude scientist that wanted to make a “daughter” so he made a fembot. With the power ot Star Trek technology (it’s all made up for plot convience basically) more of the fembots were made and could use songs as programs to tap into these servers (Tower of Ar Tornelico) to produce effects. Their job was basically to keep the servers up and guard the servers from breaking down. Thanks to Star Trek science ONLY women can be Reyvatails due to some bullshit about the Y chromasome blocking the power or some garbage like that that ignores XXY and other chromasome make ups.
So overall the game was made as wank material for Japanese men who wanted to have some dressable idols they could play with and “protect” (Like Lara Croft) with some storyline that gets convoluted as each game passes.
It’s like they had a good world, an interesting concept, a conlang and they destroyed it to make men’s wank fuel out of it. It’s like if Journey had a het. male targeted dating element in it.
Leaving aside the whole “we the reyvateils can’t solve our own problems for ourselves and need someone else to enter our heads and clear up our thinking for us” problem. Thinking for oneself is a necessary condition for being empowered.
Gagh!
Exactly that. These Reyvateils really can’t do ANYTHING on their own. They need a man to protect them as they are “fragile girls” (Stated by Misha), they need a man to get them their magic, they need a man to dress them, they need a man for literally everything. What they do on their own is a result of him being there.