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I guess I might as well ask here, because they seem to be related. What is gammergate?

You mean GamersGate? It's an online game store, I believe. Sort of like Steam.

 Ahtman wrote:

 MrDwhitey wrote:
Spite is a really big motivator for some people.

I love spite.

You can't use it as a reason for returning a jacket, though.

In Britain I can. Further proof it is God's own country.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
You mean GamersGate? It's an online game store, I believe. Sort of like Steam.

Not that. It's like some kind of tweet thing?

Ah I just noticed the absence of an S.
Google brought up nothing. It's probably some twitter buzz word.
Probably related to the Zoe Quinn thing (watergate, but with Games involved, or some nonsense)

GamerGate has come up as a term to refer to the Zoe Quinn incident in an attempt to make it less about Zoe Quinn and more about nepotism in the games industry and game media, as well as the numerous allegations plaguing Twitter, Tumblr, and Imgur that Quinn and others have been 'conspiring' with mods and admins to delete posts and pics relating to the whole thing (previously the incident was referred to as the Quinnspiracy, which I still think is more catchy but oh well).

Gamergate? Sounds lame, though if it helps deviate the issue away from Zoe Quinn/Anita, all the better; we'd be focusing more on the issue, than the personality.

 Slarg232 wrote:
Gamergate? Sounds lame, though if it helps deviate the issue away from Zoe Quinn/Anita, all the better; we'd be focusing more on the issue, than the personality.

A few things on the handle, I'm amused by the 4chan becoming a representative for gamejam.

http://gamesnosh.com/gamergate-silly-sounding-sincere-call-fair-representation-gamers-within-media/

http://gamesnosh.com/notoriously-foul-website-4chan-funds-female-inclusive-gamejam-response-to-zoe-quinn-scandal/

http://gamesnosh.com/kotaku-reforming-patreon-support-fallout-quinn-scandal/

 Sigvatr wrote:
Tiny Tina / Lilith comes to my mind.

And you know what's amusing about those examples, other than the fact that they're both psychopaths from the same games? Lilith spends the second half of BL2 as.... A damsel in distress.

Even with these characters, the trope is still there. That's the reason I think that some of the points that AS makes are valid, because these tropes are so prevalent.

 Goliath wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Tiny Tina / Lilith comes to my mind.

And you know what's amusing about those examples, other than the fact that they're both psychopaths from the same games? Lilith spends the second half of BL2 as.... A damsel in distress.

Even with these characters, the trope is still there. That's the reason I think that some of the points that AS makes are valid, because these tropes are so prevalent.

Except also Roland spends plenty of time as a damsel as well, a man who gets kidnapped and has to be saved, while lelith is also doing fine for most of the game as well.

Oh and Bloodwing.

 Goliath wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Tiny Tina / Lilith comes to my mind.

And you know what's amusing about those examples, other than the fact that they're both psychopaths from the same games? Lilith spends the second half of BL2 as.... A damsel in distress.

Who isn't a psychopath in Borderlands 2? The rampaging dwarf with two guns? The guy who is called Krieg and runs around naked? Handsome Jack with his diamond horse? Come on.

Lilith is a damsel in distress? The siren that saves an entire city by teleporting it around? Yeah....totally.

Hint: if any plot character is taken captive at some point, he / she does not directly become a damsel in distress. Damsel in distress refers to a character's only use being the player's motivation.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Damsel in distress refers to a character's only use being the player's motivation.

A character, usually female and nubile, is made helpless and put into immediate danger in order to put the cast in motion. Her plight unites the cast, causing them to put aside their differences and work together to save her.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DamselInDistress?from=Main.DistressedDamsel

That perfectly describes the last act of Borderlands 2. EDIT: hell if anything BL2 included in this the Distress Ball juggling several characters in Distress on a whim at a time.

The only thing you need to achieve the trope is a character* to be made helpless and motivate the MC, or party, to save them. It doesn't matter if its the sole use of the character or the primary motivation of the plot. Those are not needed to invoke the trope.

*Depends on if you define 'damsel' to include men as well or if you separate Damsel in Distress from Distressed Dude

Double-checked, you're correct.

Giggled at "Distressed Dude".

Still: the same goes for other characters in the game, so I wouldn't use it as a prime example.

I've actually always wondered why its not commonly called Dude in Distress. That just seems to roll off the tongue better XD

 Sigvatr wrote:
Double-checked, you're correct.

Giggled at "Distressed Dude".

Still: the same goes for other characters in the game, so I wouldn't use it as a prime example.

Oh, I know that other characters suffer from it as well, I just found it amusing that the character being used as an example gets kidnapped and used as part of the motivation for the player

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Goliath wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Tiny Tina / Lilith comes to my mind.

And you know what's amusing about those examples, other than the fact that they're both psychopaths from the same games? Lilith spends the second half of BL2 as.... A damsel in distress.

Who isn't a psychopath in Borderlands 2? The rampaging dwarf with two guns? The guy who is called Krieg and runs around naked? Handsome Jack with his diamond horse? Come on.

Lilith is a damsel in distress? The siren that saves an entire city by teleporting it around? Yeah....totally.

Hint: if any plot character is taken captive at some point, he / she does not directly become a damsel in distress. Damsel in distress refers to a character's only use being the player's motivation.

But Krieg has the shiniest meat bicycle!

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Except also Roland spends plenty of time as a damsel as well, a man who gets kidnapped and has to be saved, while lelith is also doing fine for most of the game as well.

Yeah, the in distress trope is used a lot, even on dude and even on very powerful character. In Metal Slug 3, your character become a damsel/dude in distress, and you are forced to choose a new one. Still, it applies way, way more often to female character than to male character. The thing to keep in mind is that it is a question of scale. At the scale of one game, it is not a problem. It becomes a problem when this huge imbalance is at the scale of every game, to the point “rescue the princess and kill the big bad” becomes the default, most cliche video game narrative possible.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Yeah, the in distress trope is used a lot, even on dude and even on very powerful character. In Metal Slug 3, your character become a damsel/dude in distress, and you are forced to choose a new one. Still, it applies way, way more often to female character than to male character. The thing to keep in mind is that it is a question of scale. At the scale of one game, it is not a problem. It becomes a problem when this huge imbalance is at the scale of every game, to the point “rescue the princess and kill the big bad” becomes the default, most cliche video game narrative possible.

Yes. By this same logic, I would consider Borderlands 2 one of the less problematic of games, as it portrays a very wide array of male and female characters in a wide array of situations. It doesn't 'default' genders anywhere near as much as other games have in the past. It should probably be seen as an example of the right direction that feminists would like to see games move in.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Except also Roland spends plenty of time as a damsel as well, a man who gets kidnapped and has to be saved, while lelith is also doing fine for most of the game as well.

Yeah, the in distress trope is used a lot, even on dude and even on very powerful character. In Metal Slug 3, your character become a damsel/dude in distress, and you are forced to choose a new one. Still, it applies way, way more often to female character than to male character. The thing to keep in mind is that it is a question of scale. At the scale of one game, it is not a problem. It becomes a problem when this huge imbalance is at the scale of every game, to the point “rescue the princess and kill the big bad” becomes the default, most cliche video game narrative possible.

Possibly because it's what was used by the first handful of games and those games have gotten sequels out the wazoo.

 Slarg232 wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Except also Roland spends plenty of time as a damsel as well, a man who gets kidnapped and has to be saved, while lelith is also doing fine for most of the game as well.

Yeah, the in distress trope is used a lot, even on dude and even on very powerful character. In Metal Slug 3, your character become a damsel/dude in distress, and you are forced to choose a new one. Still, it applies way, way more often to female character than to male character. The thing to keep in mind is that it is a question of scale. At the scale of one game, it is not a problem. It becomes a problem when this huge imbalance is at the scale of every game, to the point “rescue the princess and kill the big bad” becomes the default, most cliche video game narrative possible.

Possibly because it's what was used by the first handful of games and those games have gotten sequels out the wazoo.

Or possibly because the "damsel in distress" plot has been in use in western literature literally since the invention of fiction...

Also that, as a plot, Damsel in Distress is extremely simple. The only real plot elements are the Damsel, the kidnapper, and the Hero. It's prevalence in fiction is pretty much inevitable because of its raw simplicity. Even if someone doesn't start a story with a DiD, if they're writing along and they need something new to twist the story or add tension, it's one of the easiest ones to just insert into any other story to achieve that goal (hence its frequency in action movies like Die Hard).

PhantomViper wrote:

 Slarg232 wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Except also Roland spends plenty of time as a damsel as well, a man who gets kidnapped and has to be saved, while lelith is also doing fine for most of the game as well.

Yeah, the in distress trope is used a lot, even on dude and even on very powerful character. In Metal Slug 3, your character become a damsel/dude in distress, and you are forced to choose a new one. Still, it applies way, way more often to female character than to male character. The thing to keep in mind is that it is a question of scale. At the scale of one game, it is not a problem. It becomes a problem when this huge imbalance is at the scale of every game, to the point “rescue the princess and kill the big bad” becomes the default, most cliche video game narrative possible.

Possibly because it's what was used by the first handful of games and those games have gotten sequels out the wazoo.

Or possibly because the "damsel in distress" plot has been in use in western literature literally since the invention of fiction...

.... Zelda, Mario, and all the "Main aggressors" of the Damsel in Distress plot are made in the East.....

Actually, the most famous use of the "Damsel in Distress" trope was in the story of Saint George and the Dragon, which dates back to the middle ages, and is a firm part of Western culture.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Actually, the most famous use of the "Damsel in Distress" trope was in the story of Saint George and the Dragon, which dates back to the middle ages, and is a firm part of Western culture.

It's definitely one of the most codifying examples (I mean, who hasn't heard of saving the princess from the dragon?) but it does go farther, easily as far back as the Ancient Greeks and the story of Perseus and Andromeda.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Actually, the most famous use of the "Damsel in Distress" trope was in the story of Saint George and the Dragon, which dates back to the middle ages, and is a firm part of Western culture.

Yes, but in Vidja Games, most of the main users of the trope come from Japan.

 LordofHats wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Actually, the most famous use of the "Damsel in Distress" trope was in the story of Saint George and the Dragon, which dates back to the middle ages, and is a firm part of Western culture.

It's definitely one of the most codifying examples (I mean, who hasn't heard of saving the princess from the dragon?) but it does go farther, easily as far back as the Ancient Greeks and the story of Perseus and Andromeda.

Indeed, it does go back that far.
I think my favorite might be Orpheus and Eurydice.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Slarg232 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Actually, the most famous use of the "Damsel in Distress" trope was in the story of Saint George and the Dragon, which dates back to the middle ages, and is a firm part of Western culture.

Yes, but in Vidja Games, most of the main users of the trope come from Japan.

True, but PhantomViper specified western literature

 LordofHats wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Actually, the most famous use of the "Damsel in Distress" trope was in the story of Saint George and the Dragon, which dates back to the middle ages, and is a firm part of Western culture.

It's definitely one of the most codifying examples (I mean, who hasn't heard of saving the princess from the dragon?) but it does go farther, easily as far back as the Ancient Greeks and the story of Perseus and Andromeda.

Yep, that was what I was thinking, that and Penelope and Ulysses in the Odyssey.

Hey speaking of the Odyssey;

Calypso, a woman who is tortured by being turned into a Damsel in Distress who will fall in love with men who will never save her (not that they could even if they wanted to). How messed up is that

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Oh and Bloodwing.

Is Bloodwing a male or female??

 Slarg232 wrote:
.... Zelda, Mario, and all the "Main aggressors" of the Damsel in Distress plot are made in the East.....

And then for western games, there is Earthworm Jim, Battletoads, Dragon's Lair, and tons of other games that are now basically almost entirely forgotten, but that were BIG in their time. And those were forgotten because they have not “ gotten sequels out the wazoo”. Ever heard of Double Dragon? Huge series at some point, now forgotten. So, not, at one time, it was really a ton of games that were using this trope, not just two series. If you bought a TMNT game, you could quite likely expect April to be captured and you would have to rescue her. It did not happen in every TMNT games, but in quite a few. It was the default plot.