Mass Effect hiatus speculation and reactions (consolidated thread)

May 11, 2017 23:51:47 GMT Saboru said:

Which means bascally we're talking about lore not logic. And works of fiction have pretty limited amounts of information compared to what we're used to dealing with. Compared to reality they're what you might call lore light. Brains don't like this, they're used to detail, so they trundle off and fill in the blanks. And when brains fill in the blanks they fill them in based on our preconceptions and experience. Then our brain tells us this is 'internal logic'.

But then the next instalment trundles along, in strides the author, adds to the actual lore on the page, slaps one of our preconceptions in the face and the brain has a small shit fit. And it's much worse in scifi/fantasy where you're already throwing random concepts from reality to the wolves.

Much of the complaining about lore contradictions turns out to be 'But I assumed the fantasy world, science, species etc. was just like what I've experienced here apart from the bits specifically mentioned as different, but now they've added more, and it's not how I thought it was!' And of course it's not like that can be avoided, because your audience of different people have all brought different preconceptions dependent on their experience and culture.

Not really. you can learn quite a lot about the world and the lore from the game itself. There's codex and there's things that characters say. This is what I'm talking about mainly, not mere assumptions.

As for things making sense in general, I mean something like the Qunari that are usually super-authoritarians to the point of chemically/magically lobotomizing people that don't get with the program,

suddenly becoming very gentle and understanding in regards to "gender identity", it simply makes no sense to me.

Ockham's razor tells you to look for the simplest explanation first, and in this case the simplest explanation is a retcon motivated by the political agenda of the writer.

May 12, 2017 0:30:49 GMT Saboru said:

Except this isn't about individuality. They are strongly authoritarian. They have defined gender roles. They do not define gender in a way we are culturally used to.

It's still an authoritarian society with rigid gender roles. Ten a penny in fantasy fiction, right? So rather than giving us the old familiar comfort blanket, they've pulled the rug out from under us by showing you what that looks like with a different approach to gender. And they've used a way of defining gender that correlates with anti authoritarian attitudes in our cultures. It's a lovely mind fuck. Lots of cognitive dissonance. But nothing contradictory about it.

I don't need a "comfort blanket", thank you very much.

I explained this in another post:

May 12, 2017 0:59:23 GMT Saboru said:

Nope, you keep tripping over your own cultural norms. You've imprinted strongly on the idea that authoritarian cultures have rigid gender roles, that use only the definition of gender you are comfortable with. Everything you've said there is reliant on that definition being the one in use. That's the comfort blanket in action. Put it down a moment. Change the axioms of your logic, create of a new definition of gender than matches that one described in the game, now start deriving ideas about the culture from there.

You know very little about me or my "imprinting".

What you fail to realize in regards to the discussion itself is that even authoritarian cultures do things like enforcing their will on the individual because it benefits them in some way.

There's every benefit to be gained (if you are willing to act like a monster, which they have proven themselves ready to) by forcing a female to act as a breeding stock.

The opposite isn't as true, because physically a strong female is in most cases weaker than a strong male.

In short, it makes more sense for a totalitarian regime to work with the reality of biology than against it. It's all about the "glory of the Qun" as a collective rather than the desires of an individual.

There's much more glory to be head by forcing a strong woman to bear strong offspring than in letting her fight. (at least from the perspective of the Qun)

May 12, 2017 1:31:18 GMT @pasquale said:

You moved the goalposts. You asked if I know the difference between lore expansion and retcon.

I didn't move anything really. I see it as a clear retcon, you don't.

On this and on the rest I can only agree to disagree, as we seem to be arguing in circles here.

May 12, 2017 1:38:23 GMT @pasquale said:

I just described a different application of "biological reality" than the one you came up with.

What we've been trying to explain for awhile now is that you've filled in the blanks in a particular way, but it's not the only possible way - and in some cases, may not be the way the author intended.

You are, of course, free to disavow word of god, but then you don't get to cry retcon.

The reality of biology is that females are capable of spawning more soldiers, so risking them as warriors is simply not worth it for the weird ultra-authoritarian, collectivist, and mostly utilitarian society that is the Qun.

The hypothetical motivations are merely hypothetical and don't carry the same weight from a utilitarian point of view.

This is a retcon both because it goes against what a soldier of the Qun told us in DA:O, and both because it goes against the theme of the Qun.

But again, I can happily agree to disagree.