Thief 2 - female guards
C J Silverio
thom...@bellatlantic.net (Thomas j. Evans) writes:
|I was wondering if anyone else was a little put off buy the inclusion
|of female guards in Thief 2...? I mean, being PC is good and all, but
|for the time period that the Thief games are set, it seems to take
|away from realism to have female guards - especially so many. It
|seems that they've almost gone 50/50 between male and female guards.
|It bothers me to be playing a game set in a time period of nobility
|and chivalry and have to chase after a women with a sword.
Thief is set in its own universe with its own history and mores.
The peculiar state of its technology should be your clue about that.
(Electric lighting and alarm systems, but no gunpowder, for example.)
How can you say that it's weird for Thief's guards to be female?
Take your cue from Garrett, who doesn't bat an eye.
|Everything about Thief 2 has been top-notch, so it's not like I'm
|complaining. Just wondering if perhaps the push to be PC can
|sometimes go to a point where it makes the game unrealistic.
I just love it that the ratio of men to women in the real
world is perceived as unrealistic when it appears in a game.
--
C J Silverio ce...@spies.com <http://www.ceejbot.com/>
Black book: an online journal <http://www.blackbook.org/latest.html>
Macintosh on the desktop; Linux in the server room.
Ryan Franklin
> away from realism to have female guards - especially so many. It
> seems that they've almost gone 50/50 between male and female guards.
> It bothers me to be playing a game set in a time period of nobility
> and chivalry and have to chase after a women with a sword.
Nobility and chivalry? In _Thief_?!
Did we play the same game? ;-)
There are no noble or chivalrous characters in the Thief series; it's
noir, basically. You play a bad person (Garrett) whose only redeeming
feature is that he's not _as_ bad as the people he's tangling with,
under most circumstances. Male characters in Thief fall into a few basic
categories: they are the evil mastermind/nemesis (Truart, Karras, the
Trickster), they are the hapless victim (servants), they are the window
dressing (servants, Raul), or they're the thugs (guards, Hammers,
Mechanists, etc.). In contrast, female characters are the evil
mastermind/nemesis (Viktoria, Lady Valerius in the Song of the Caverns
mission), they're the hapless victims (servants, nobles), they're the
window dressing (again), and now in Thief 2, they're thugs as well.
It's never been like the sexes were _not_ equal in the Thief
universe before the introduction of female guards--quite the contrary, I
think. Both sexes were equal because people, in general, were shown to be
equal. Equally bad, that is. Lady Valerius isn't looked at as being
somehow inferior to Lord Bafford. Viktoria is at least as big a wheel as
the Trickster (if not bigger). And, y'know, that female guard in Thief
kicked my ass at least as fast as her male counterpart did. ;-)
> Everything about Thief 2 has been top-notch, so it's not like I'm
> complaining. Just wondering if perhaps the push to be PC can
> sometimes go to a point where it makes the game unrealistic.
Ah, yes. Because I can stand in a dark doorway between two brightly-lit
rooms and a passing guard will not notice my silhouette, and I can carry
about fifty tons of loot through a house without it clanking around or
pinning me to the ground beneath its massive weight, and I can be attacked
by flying balls of fire, zombies, and spell-throwing fanatics, etc., etc.,
but it's the female guards that make the game unrealistic. ;-)
I guess that's what strikes me as so weird about the occasional "female
guards are a sign of too much political correctness" notion--the world
depicted in Thief is so dramatically different from the real world that
I'm not sure why the inclusion of female guards is somehow _too_ much for
credibility to bear. Yeah, it's not what you usually get in traditional
fantasy--but Thief's not traditional fantasy.
And anyway, with the gamma turned down, they're all the same.
Just sword-toting moving targets for my blackjack. ;-)
--
plus, they gave the female guards some of the funniest lines
ry...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net
Thomas j. Evans
of female guards in Thief 2...? I mean, being PC is good and all, but
for the time period that the Thief games are set, it seems to take
seems that they've almost gone 50/50 between male and female guards.
It bothers me to be playing a game set in a time period of nobility
and chivalry and have to chase after a women with a sword.
Everything about Thief 2 has been top-notch, so it's not like I'm
complaining. Just wondering if perhaps the push to be PC can
sometimes go to a point where it makes the game unrealistic.
-T
Laner
Thomas j. Evans <thom...@bellatlantic.net> wrote in message
news:397fb31...@news.bellatlantic.net...
True... it's not a design decision I would have made, but it's not big
enough for me to worry about
saint
Evans) wrote:
>I was wondering if anyone else was a little put off buy the inclusion
>of female guards in Thief 2...? I mean, being PC is good and all, but
>for the time period that the Thief games are set, it seems to take
>away from realism to have female guards - especially so many. It
>seems that they've almost gone 50/50 between male and female guards.
>It bothers me to be playing a game set in a time period of nobility
>and chivalry and have to chase after a women with a sword.
>
>Everything about Thief 2 has been top-notch, so it's not like I'm
>complaining. Just wondering if perhaps the push to be PC can
>sometimes go to a point where it makes the game unrealistic.
>
I guess you just need a caveman mentality to appreciate the intimacies
of bonking a female guard with a blackjack.
mr bernard langham
> I guess that's what strikes me as so weird about the occasional "female
> guards are a sign of too much political correctness" notion--the world
> depicted in Thief is so dramatically different from the real world that
> I'm not sure why the inclusion of female guards is somehow _too_ much for
> credibility to bear. Yeah, it's not what you usually get in traditional
> fantasy--but Thief's not traditional fantasy.
It just goes to show how conservative the average American still is -- if he
feels that a 50/50 ratio of female/male guards is somehow "shocking",
"unrealistic" and "PC".
Laner
mr bernard langham <blu...@diespamdie.ii.net> wrote in message
news:39801efc$0$21...@motown.iinet.net.au...
And that just goes to show how intolerant the supposedly "tolerant" liberals
still are.
This has nothing to do with being "conservative" - it's simply inaccurate
for the time period.
mr bernard langham
"Laner" <3...@3.com> wrote in message
news:VGVf5.74154$Yr4.1...@news1.rdc1.tn.home.com...
>
> mr bernard langham <blu...@diespamdie.ii.net> wrote in message
> news:39801efc$0$21...@motown.iinet.net.au...
> >
> > > I guess that's what strikes me as so weird about the occasional
"female
> > > guards are a sign of too much political correctness" notion--the world
> > > depicted in Thief is so dramatically different from the real world
that
> > > I'm not sure why the inclusion of female guards is somehow _too_ much
> for
> > > credibility to bear. Yeah, it's not what you usually get in
traditional
> > > fantasy--but Thief's not traditional fantasy.
> >
> > It just goes to show how conservative the average American still is --
if
> he
> > feels that a 50/50 ratio of female/male guards is somehow "shocking",
> > "unrealistic" and "PC".
>
> And that just goes to show how intolerant the supposedly "tolerant"
liberals
> still are.
I'm certainly intolerant of conservative bigotry, in any form. Sorry if that
offends you, old chump. You'll just have to live with it, I guess.
>
> This has nothing to do with being "conservative" - it's simply inaccurate
> for the time period.
>
You have some insight into gender relationships in the fictional, alternate
reality timeperiod depicted in Thief that is denied to the rest of it? How
did you obtain this insight? Out of body experience? Astral travel to
another plane? Do tell.
>^..^<
Bernard
--
mr bernard langham . blueboy@(diespamdie)ii.net . perth, western ashtraylia
cassetteNET/DIY lo-fi punkarama/indie vs major FAQ http://ii.net/~blueboy
--
"Feel free to cite, sample, steal, sell, reference, borrow or plagiarize
anything that I have created, thought or said. Information wants to be free
and intellectual property is both anachronistic and wrong" -- Meme #96
Donald L. Wasylyk
> This has nothing to do with being "conservative" - it's simply inaccurate
> for the time period.
Ah, yes! You're absolutely correct! My interest piqued, I took it
upon myself to check several noteworthy history texts pertaining to
European history. Sure enough, at that rather unstable period where the
custom-designed arrow trade ruled the market, steam-powered robot
sentries were fashionable, and The Builder was a top-notch deity, the
male to female ratio on hired help and bruiser cultists was far closer
to 80/20. I'm also quite put out that they didn't think to include
whores on the street corners and in the taverns. At least Messiah was
historically accurate.
- D.L.W.
Brian Robinson
> It bothers me to be playing a game set in a time period of nobility
> and chivalry and have to chase after a women with a sword.
>
yet, but in the original I find it extremely exciting to sneak up on the
female servants have them yell for mercy then hear the plonk and the moan
as I sap them. I'm all for more female NPCs.
--
Brian Robinson
brob...@ist.ucf.edu
Institute for Simulation and Training
Christoph Nahr
wrote:
>I just love it that the ratio of men to women in the real
>world is perceived as unrealistic when it appears in a game.
Get a grip, the ratio of men to woman in real-world security jobs is
most certainly not 50:50. Never was, especially not in any age or
society where people were armed with swords and hammers. Using such
weapons require a good deal of strength, you know, and men just tend
to be stronger than women because biology is evil and sexist.
Probably racist, capitalist and imperialist, too.
Christoph Nahr
Evans) wrote:
>Everything about Thief 2 has been top-notch, so it's not like I'm
>complaining. Just wondering if perhaps the push to be PC can
>sometimes go to a point where it makes the game unrealistic.
Yeah, this over-abundance of sword maidens was pretty silly. Not sure
if they were consciously aiming for political correctness, though.
Maybe they just wanted to make their NPC zoo more diverse, and it's
simply much easier to create variety if you can use different sexes.
They look and sound different, more different than if you just had
different male models. Basically it's the same reasoning as with
animals, zombies and robots...
Jason Corley
> mr bernard langham <blu...@diespamdie.ii.net> wrote in message
> news:39801efc$0$21...@motown.iinet.net.au...
>>
>> It just goes to show how conservative the average American still is -- if
> he
>> feels that a 50/50 ratio of female/male guards is somehow "shocking",
>> "unrealistic" and "PC".
> And that just goes to show how intolerant the supposedly "tolerant" liberals
> still are.
> This has nothing to do with being "conservative" - it's simply inaccurate
> for the time period.
Uh, in case you haven't noticed, Thief 2 is set in an alternate universe
that combines elements of medieval, 19th century, and completely invented
time periods. Why they should have imported the role of women from the
real world and not from the fantasy world is a mystery to me.
--
"He means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise man,
but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of his senses."
-----Benjamin Franklin, 1783
Jason D. Corley | ICQ 41199011 | le...@aeonsociety.org
Quatoria
"Laner" <3...@3.com> wrote:
>This has nothing to do with being "conservative" - it's simply inaccurate
>for the time period.
>
.... as opposed to the walking undead, ghosts, and mechanical beasts,
which are, as we all know, HISTORICALLY ACCURATE.
-Quatoria
--
In this unpredictable, oftentimes contentious world,
sometimes you just have to sit back, take a moment to
reflect, and say "Well, I'll be a greased Jesus!"
Jason McCullough
It's pretty ridiculous to complain that not enough women are given the
part of the evil toady guard in video games. What, is the patriachy
subjugating women by not giving them the opportunity to be portrayed
as one-dimensional looting targets?
It's even *sillier*, of course, to complain that there's *too many.*
I have difficulty picturing the following sequence of events:
1. Some walking skeleton guy is chasing you down a hallway, wanting
to eat your brains, or whatever the undead modus operandi in this
particular fantasy world is.
2. You're having a great time playing the game.
3. You round a corner and spy four female guards on a coffee break.
4. "WHAT? FOUR FEMALE GUARDS? My sense of immersion has been
completely ruined! In the real world, even over-estimating the chance
that a guard will be female to be 20%, the likelihood that four in a
row would all be women is 1 in 625! I'm supposed to believe this?"
While you're sitting there in shock, of course, the skeleton man eats
your brain.
5. You uninstall the game, since it's no longer fun.
Lord knows I choose my games on the basis of whether they accurately
portray employment demographics.
Jason McCullough
http://zebco.home.dhs.org/
Quatoria
Robinson <brob...@figment.ist.ucf.edu> wrote:
>
> Funny, I've had the opposite reaction. I haven't played Thief 2
>yet, but in the original I find it extremely exciting to sneak up on the
>female servants have them yell for mercy then hear the plonk and the moan
>as I sap them. I'm all for more female NPCs.
It's good to know we can always depend on you to make us feel creepy
and dirty in any discussion that involves women, Brian.
C J Silverio
"Laner" <3...@3.com> writes:
|This has nothing to do with being "conservative" - it's simply inaccurate
|for the time period.
And what "time period" is that exactly? In which universe?
William
ROFL!
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Thomas j. Evans
>---
>thom...@bellatlantic.net (Thomas j. Evans) writes:
>|I was wondering if anyone else was a little put off buy the inclusion
>|of female guards in Thief 2...? I mean, being PC is good and all, but
>|for the time period that the Thief games are set, it seems to take
>|away from realism to have female guards - especially so many. It
>|seems that they've almost gone 50/50 between male and female guards.
>|It bothers me to be playing a game set in a time period of nobility
>|and chivalry and have to chase after a women with a sword.
>
>Thief is set in its own universe with its own history and mores.
>The peculiar state of its technology should be your clue about that.
This is true, and I hadn't really thought of that, but looking at the
architecture, language, and social elements, the game is still
primarily based on late 19th, early 20th century Europe, a time when
there wouldn't have been any female guards. While the unusual
technology is there to indicate a fictitious world, there are so many
real-world elements that the game always seems to be keeping one foot
in reality. Even the supernatural elements like ghosts and zombies
are based on real-world myths.
-T
Raymond Espiritu
news:f3l0os8o148g7qd9o...@4ax.com...
>
> >I just love it that the ratio of men to women in the real
> >world is perceived as unrealistic when it appears in a game.
>
> Get a grip, the ratio of men to woman in real-world security jobs is
> most certainly not 50:50. Never was, especially not in any age or
> society where people were armed with swords and hammers. Using such
> weapons require a good deal of strength, you know, and men just tend
> to be stronger than women because biology is evil and sexist.
> Probably racist, capitalist and imperialist, too.
Well, if you are referring to men and women who are paid explicitly for the
purpose of guarding stuff, then yes, I would agree that the ratio of paid
guards is highly skewed to men. However, when just looking at people who
guarded stuff, most likely because it was THEIR stuff, one need only look at
medieval Japan and the naginata to see that women were expected to be as
equally adept at protecting their family and posessions as men were. Of
course this would refer to men and women of the warrior class, or bushi.
Check out http://members.aol.com/naginata/history2.html
I realize that your argument was regarding men/women in paid security jobs,
but I wanted to dispel the corollary that the ratio of women/men defending
themselves using weapons (whether paid or not) was skewed to the men for all
cultures and time periods.
Ray
Raymond Espiritu
> >Thief is set in its own universe with its own history and mores.
> >The peculiar state of its technology should be your clue about that.
>
> This is true, and I hadn't really thought of that, but looking at the
> architecture, language, and social elements, the game is still
> primarily based on late 19th, early 20th century Europe, a time when
> there wouldn't have been any female guards. While the unusual
> technology is there to indicate a fictitious world, there are so many
> real-world elements that the game always seems to be keeping one foot
> in reality. Even the supernatural elements like ghosts and zombies
> are based on real-world myths.
>
Still, the nice thing about creating a fictitious world is one can
populate it with any slew of social mores, customs, and prejudices. It's
simply a matter of picking and choosing elements to create a world and then
staying withing the rules of the world once it's created.
Ray
Raymond Espiritu
> thom...@bellatlantic.net (Thomas j. Evans) writes:
> |I was wondering if anyone else was a little put off buy the inclusion
> |of female guards in Thief 2...? I mean, being PC is good and all, but
> |for the time period that the Thief games are set, it seems to take
> |away from realism to have female guards - especially so many. It
> |seems that they've almost gone 50/50 between male and female guards.
> |It bothers me to be playing a game set in a time period of nobility
> |and chivalry and have to chase after a women with a sword.
The key word here is "seems" which I try to be careful about using when
I think I notice a trend or pattern (either in games or real life). It's
human nature to remember scenes or instances that support a growing
hypothesis or suspicion and to forget scenes which disprove it. It's why I
think, for example, that I always reach a certain intersection just when it
turns red. I only remember times when it does turn red, thus supporting my
theory that it always will turn red for me.
So has anyone counted and really seen whether the ratio is 50/50? Maybe
we can pool resources and have people only count for the level that they're
on?
Ray
Brian Robinson
> It's good to know we can always depend on you to make us feel creepy
> and dirty in any discussion that involves women, Brian.
>
on Bridge Programs and Multifederation Simulations... Oh wait, yes they
are. I should get back to work.
Brian Robinson
> So has anyone counted and really seen whether the ratio is 50/50? Maybe
> we can pool resources and have people only count for the level that they're
> on?
>
editor. Thief 2 probably allows you to do the same. It would probably be
easier to just load each level and count in the editor.
Mark Stevens
Evans) wrote:
>...looking at the architecture, language, and social elements, the game
>is still primarily based on late 19th, early 20th century Europe...
Erm, you *are* joking, aren't you? I think you need to go back to
school and ask for a quick recap.
--
Mark Stevens
Arnulf Guenther
Evans) wrote:
>I was wondering if anyone else was a little put off buy the inclusion
>of female guards in Thief 2...? I mean, being PC is good and all, but
>for the time period that the Thief games are set, it seems to take
>away from realism to have female guards - especially so many. It
>seems that they've almost gone 50/50 between male and female guards.
>It bothers me to be playing a game set in a time period of nobility
>and chivalry and have to chase after a women with a sword.
>
>Everything about Thief 2 has been top-notch, so it's not like I'm
>complaining. Just wondering if perhaps the push to be PC can
>sometimes go to a point where it makes the game unrealistic.
>
>-T
"Now we're gettin' on to something ... " ;)
I never had a problem with this. The Thief games played in their own
universe altogether. What's more disturbing though, now that you
mention this, I recall no women in Thief 1 were guards. Maybe a
female thief, but no guards. Even the hammerites had no female
guards. So the discontinuity is in the series itself! But: I never
noticed this until now, when it is discussed. Speaks for the game
series, I think.
-Arnulf
Laurentiu
thom...@bellatlantic.net (Thomas j. Evans) wrote:
> I was wondering if anyone else was a little put off buy the inclusion
> of female guards in Thief 2...? I mean, being PC is good and all, but
> for the time period that the Thief games are set, it seems to take
> away from realism to have female guards - especially so many. It
> seems that they've almost gone 50/50 between male and female guards.
> It bothers me to be playing a game set in a time period of nobility
> and chivalry and have to chase after a women with a sword.
>
> Everything about Thief 2 has been top-notch, so it's not like I'm
> complaining. Just wondering if perhaps the push to be PC can
> sometimes go to a point where it makes the game unrealistic.
>
> -T
>
There is nothing wrong with the women guards in Thief II. Quite the
contrary. Just think about this: in Thief II The Metal Age we see how
much the City changes under the rule of the Mechanists who introduce
all kinds of devices and robots. It's like industrialization in the
human history which contributed to women getting the same rights as
men. Maybe the designers of the game thought of this when they added
women guards. This would also be a reasonable explanation why you don't
see as many women guards in Thief The Dark Project. In TII their
presence is another sign of the changes due to the Mechanists
technology.
--
Laurentiu
laur...@my-dejanews.com