Heard a lot of BS claims saying that gears 5 is feminist bc Kait is the lead. I didn’t know simply having a woman as your protagonist was a bad thing…
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Uh oh, this could get interesting. I will add to it though. Companies these days are sensitive. They need, for the most part, to be PC. IMO, Gears was made as a muscle bound, action hero, conan the barbarian type of game. I’m still going to play the game no matter what. Am I excited to play as Kait. No. I think she is boring as a character. The only way I will accept that she is worthy as a main character is if she is ruthless and does not care what she does, as in killing left and right, cold hearted SOB and ignores almost everyone in the game just to get answers. I played AC Odyssey as Kasandra because I wanted a different kind of character for once and I don’t regret it. I don’t mind women as lead characters but I’m just not a fan of Kait.
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I would prefer hardened rather than berserk.
Just played through God of War 3 and berserk Kratos got old after 10 minutes.
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Define hardened in this case. Perhaps I should have used Ruthless then?
That’s more like it.
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I’d have to agree with this. I am not worried about a female lead, other than it kind of flies in the face of the machismo of the Gears franchise. ALL of the new characters are pretty bland, but that may have been by design so they can expand on their personalities through the next 2 games.
Either way, Kait’s story is 100000x more interesting than JD’s, and Del doesn’t even have a story. This fits naturally in the flow of how the end of the first game went.
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I think this topic has the potential to turn into a massive poo storm with people arguing.
Yes you’re absolutely right. A female lead in itself is not necessarily equality and feminism. It’s alot more complicated than that, and there are lots of different strands to equality. Representation is one thing, but the portrayal is as important.
Also I get the sense that alot of people dont understand what feminism is. A large part is down to ignorance. Another part is the representation of feminism in the media, and that sometimes the loudest and most prominent voices within the feminish movement misrepresent it.
There are lots of branches of feminist theory. There is radical feminism which takes a much more hardline approach, there is black feminism, there is Marxist feminism which focuses on ecomonics and social class, etc etc. Ita a broad church of ideologies and theories. The thing that some people forget is that feminism and mens rights go hand in hand. By the same vein feminism demands equality and challenges notions of what femininity should be and how it can oppress women, equality is essential for men and challenging toxic masculinity too. Suicide rates and depression are big amongst men. Alot of research indicates that its linked to toxic masculinity and that men need to be strong, stoic, macho types.
Right now we’re experiencing a very interesting cultural revolution which is underpinned by the Me Too movement. There’s been a real push back by feminists against misogyny.
People may disagree with me, which is fine. This is purely my opinion. I also want to make clear that I am not disregarding the rights of men.
Culturally there has been varying degrees and elements of misogyny which has been deeply inbedded in our culture. Its not just the West, but across the world. Sexual violence, forced marriages, female genital mutilation, lack of representation in a large number of social arenas (e.g.: upper management in business, politics etc). Everything we thought was the norm and which was right is being challenged, and I think alot of people, predominantly men, are on the defensive. This is why theres been a backlash against Me Too and this cultural revolution.
The Me Too movement and media has some responsibility too in the way they portray the narrative. It does sometimes come across as quite aggresssive and risks shutting down the opportunity to have these meaningful and progressive discussions.
On the topic of Kait being the lead for GOW5, i often read criticisms which dont really sit that right with me. It may seem like a little thing, but the language used is very gendered. Its a reflection of society, sure. But its impact runs far deeper. I often hear the words “whiny brat”; “emotional”; “reactionary” when describing Kait and why people dont want her to be the lead all because of the way she reacted to her mum being captured.
Well Dom reacted emotionally reacted to Mariangoimg missing. Marcus wanted to rescue his father and this was the preamble to GOW1. But you dont hear them described using these words. And these are career soldiers, not an Outsider.
To link it with the feminist angle, I think some people are seeing this - Kait being the lead, as being part of this liberal feminist agenda. Its not. To me its just the telling of the story of a female charater.
I would say all of the new characters could have been presented better in GOW4. I thought they were all quite bland, but Kait showed glimpses of something more interesting. Storywise given the events of GOW4, it makes total sense for GOW5 to be Kait’s story.
On a slightly different note, I get the sense fans are also very invested in the original trilogy and are finding it hard to move on. Delta’s story has been told and is done. Now is the time for the new generation’s story to be told. If it turns out to be poor, then so be it. But TC need to give a new story a go. It cant just be about Delta forever.
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Come on Pepper, you wrote a friggin biography basically
Gears 4 is at the very least on par with Gears 1 as far as character depth goes. However, those characters have been greatly fleshed out over the course of several games and books so we’ve become spoiled.
Gears 4 is starting from scratch, and we were used to having a diverse, thoroughly explored cast of characters to root for. This new batch of characters we still know very little about - and thus haven’t had the time to develop attachment to - feel thin and bland by comparison
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You’re thin and bland by comparison…?
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I am very interested to see where this goes…
@T0NY_HAYABUSA @Bleeding_Pepper I think both of you brought up so very good points
We’ve had a few of these threads already. It’s all preference as every thing else is around here. I said this before, It’s like Conan the Barbarian with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Huge muscle bound Mr. Olympia. Like action movies should be. But nowadays, it’s like remaking Conan with Jake Gyllenhaal, a scrawny little guy with no muscle whatsoever. I’m not a fan of it as is others. But hey, again, it’s all preference.
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I myself am pretty neutral. I don’t plan on playing the campaign anyways
I guess we’ll just have to see if Kait turns out to be a Princess Leia, or a Sara Connor.
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Agree, slightly. We started out getting broken out of prison with Marcus, early on find out that Dom is looking for his wife, etc. At the very least we wanted more of their story. Literally the only time I cared about anyone’s story other than characters from the last few games, was the last 15 seconds of the game.
No, the characters aren’t super deep in the first iteration, but I barely made it through the game the first time because it was all boring… There was no drive to finish the game and find out the twists and turns in the story like the first time I played Gears 1.
I think people are going to be concerned when you have a War type game portraying females as lead roles. For this does not usually represent or reflect reality. And because there is in fact a SJW agenda being pushed in gaming.
However, I don’t think Gears of war is doing that. I legitimately believe this is a new story that has a lot to do with kait in which I am quite interested in. Kait being related to Queen Myrrah is quite an interesting twist.
When you have developers alternating their original ideas or changing history to meet social justice requirements then people have a right to be upset.
But like I said, I don’t think Gears is doing that. Gears 4 was about JD and his friends battling a newly awakened enemy and I think it transitioned into Kait’s relation to Queen Myrrah just fine.
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Yes I do agree that the SJW ideas such as intersectionality are seeping into different aspects of our society, but yes, I do think that Gears is not trying to pander to obnoxious Twitter soldiers, but is legitimately trying to create a interesting storyline.
But like I said, I don’t plan on playing the campaign anyways
It didn’t even occur to me that I should have an opinion about the lead being a female until I came here. Many gamers have resentment toward women. I know because I play with a lot of women and play on my wife’s acct sometimes and I see the difference in how they are treated.
There is nothing being shoved down anyone’s throats here, it’s the natural progression and variety necessary to make a god story. Did you have a problem with Myrrah leading the Locusts?