Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Default vault dweller

An aside, Lysistrata is not any "greek story." It is a comedy by Aristophanes, who is arguably the father of comedy as we know it today. For a laugh, I recommend "The Frogs," but Lysistrata is pretty funny too.

I don't disagree with you. This is all absurd. But I find your points to be nonsensical.
Source: Know Attic Greek. Translated Aristophanes.

"Your points are nonsensical." End of discussion. Truly you've learned well from the Greek scholars on philosophy to have so succinctly countered my rebuttal so masterfully.

No, you're just not worth my time.
Edit: Also, to remind you, this is a forum for a video game. This isn't worth your time either.

My post: 24 minutes ago
Your response: 23 minutes ago
Total time to respond: 1 minute

You sure you don't think it's worth your time?

I assumed from the post you deleted I thought you would be interesting to talk to. My bad for assuming.

I did not write this, so I would appreciate if you would not quote me on this. It was written by Gray Ghost.

Didn't delete it. It's in spoiler tags because it was off-topic. I made a post agreeing with someone that this post was off-topic and put the previous post in spoiler tags, clearly mentioning that I put the post in spoiler tags, because this post and my post was off-topic and Composer is probably going to close it whenever he/she/they wakes up. If you want to talk about Baldur's Gate III and how we can help to improve it, I'm game. Otherwise, a debate on the consistency of social issues in varied media through the historical ages really doesn't have a place here. It's all just begging for the thread to be closed... which it should be, anyway.

But, if you want me to humor you, and I mean this with no ill will:
I don't buy that all literature has served the purpose of speaking out for the weak and against the strong. The earliest forms of literature exalted the strong. If you've ever read Nietzsche's "On the Genealogy of Morals," you know that a lot of ancient literature was drafted by the strong, by the rich, by the elites, and that they saw themselves as strong and righteous simply by virtue of being the elite. Indeed, the term for aristocracy comes from the Greek word "Aristos" (A=alpha, r=rho, i=iota, s=sigma, t=tau, o=omicron), meaning "Best, superior, or excellent," as in the name of the philosopher "Aristotle." The Epic of Gilgamesh is perhaps the oldest example of literature, and it tells the story of a cruel king who is only calmed through a hunting brotherhood with a wild man, and who, in an apparent crisis, seeks out immortality. I would argue the only time Gilgamesh is altruistic is when he ponders handing the means of immortality to the elders of his city (who are still ELITES, not plebeians). BUT, one will note that the ancient and classical conception of duty has much less to do with protecting the weak, and much more to do with appeasing the Gods, or the city, or destiny. I also think we are exhibiting a heavy degree of selection bias when we look at Lysistrata and think, "Oh, gender norms were an issue in Ancient Greece, and gender norms are an issue today; therefore, all social issues today are the same social issues through history." I think that's a faulty line of thinking that attempts to extrapolate a few historical points to a host of contemporary issues.

Edit: If you haven't read the Genealogy, I should warn you that there is some mildly antisemitic language. Nietzsche wasn't an antisemite himself (in my opinion, and most academics' opinions), but he lived in a somewhat antisemitic period in history, and was fond of using coded language. For a non-antisemitic example of coded language, he opens the work talking about "English Psychologists," but the context of the work suggests that he's referring to the philosopher David Hume's account of the "Good," which was a social/natural account of goodness being based on what is praiseworthy, which is based on what is useful. It's either that or German is a really funny language. Or he's talking about Ree. That's possible too.

Edit 2: An argument can be made that the Gods send Enkidu to Gilgamesh on account of the prayers of his people, who suffer under him, but it never actually resolves Gilgamesh's cruelty in the long-term, and Gilgamesh remains the protagonist of the story. I would argue that while the story is sympathetic to the people of Uruk, it is not sympathetic to the weak and the poor in general.

Edit 3: If Composer doesn't close this thread, I'm turning it into a philosophy-shitposting ground.

The words "weak" and "strong" do not appear in my writing. The phrase I used was "Stories have ALWAYS discussed contemporary issues of their time."
Along with some notable examples. Which I think you would find is quite accurate.

Furthermore, I did not say that all literature (media) focuses on this. I said that "most media is inherently political."


The point is not that all social issues are the same, but connecting to the original conversation of "anti-woke" sentiment. The idea that works were criticized for simply being bringing up political issues as opposed to being discussed on their merits. I'm sure many a humorless nobleman would have said Lysistrata was "woke attack on men" and "giving their wives silly ideas like standing up to their husbands", etc. As well as the aforementioned point that much of media has always been political.


Is this not political? Elites stroking their own ego writing about how great they are and how they deserve their power and wealth? This is the media I referred to as some "praising political media that supports their narrative, claiming it is actually non-political." Propaganda even. Any noble that wrote anything in dissent would have been thoroughly rebuked for even daring to question their consensus on the matter without even considering their opinions. Have you seen what happens when rich people get criticized literally ever? Do they ever address the substance of the matter or wave it off as peasants being jealous of their wealth.

This hits to the main point that you've been avoiding: Certain media criticism has always been dismissed out of hand for one reason or another. Whether its criticizing nobles hoarding wealth or general notions of equality or having gay people in a video game. It has always happened. It's just called "being woke" nowadays.


Side note:
Bruh, you just said "he wasn't anti-semitic, he was just surrounded by anti-semites and liked anti-semitic slang"

I didn't think I would ever get the opportunity to explain the nuance to Nietzsche in the Genealogy on a video game forum. The specific term Nietzsche uses is not an antisemitic canard, but rather the term, "Jewish Priests." In the context of the work, he is discussing the revolution in moral values from good-bad (that good is noble, high, mighty, healthy, and bad is ill, weak) to good-evil (good is righteous, selfless, kind, and evil is cruel, powerful, oppressive). Nietzsche largely traces this to the Judeo-Christian tradition, and so uses the term "Jewish Priests" as the means of this moral revolution in history. If you want to get really precise about the values he's talking about, he's really talking about the traditions of selflessness in the line of the early Church Fathers, who were Jewish Christians, hence, Jewish Priests. He's also talking about the Mosaic tradition, which is a tradition of slaves revolting against their masters and going to a new land. So, the Jewish Priests.

But there is also the matter of immediacy in politics. To clarify, I didn't go after you in the beginning because I'm a member of the no-politics crowd. I went after you because I felt your political terminology and methodology were incorrect. When the anti-woke crowd talks about politics in media, they are talking about cleavage issues. I'm not using the term cleavage to be funny. It is a technical term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleavage_(politics) . The crowd is complaining that companies are honing in on cleavage issues and taking a specific position, and they are mad because that position conflicts with their life narrative in some capacity, and this therefore has political consequences.

Edit: The whole point here is that, yes, works of literature discuss social issues of their age. No one doubts that... what else would they talk about? Metaphysical musings? But, I would maintain that these social issues have varied, ebbed, and flowed over time, and that we cannot draw a straight line between Aristophanes and modern day social discourse on gender. I think that's a highly anachronistic reading of Aristophanes and ignores, as you said, 2500 years (!), of social and moral development. The matter I have issue with is that the term "political" when applied as a pejorative to media is not an insulting descriptor of the media, but an insulting accusation that the piece of media in question is weighing in on an immediate sociopolitical issue. I sincerely hope you don't think there was a significant and robust women's rights movement in Classical Athens at the time of the first presentation of Lysistrata. Athens was NOTORIOUSLY PATRIARCHAL, almost fundamentally. Lysistrata did not represent a competing worldview to the Ancient Greeks; I think it served to mock the mores and views of the day, which is not what the no-politics crowd is complaining about. When I speak of social cleavages, I am talking about issues that neatly divide a broader society into competing narrative camps. In my own case, sociopolitical cleavages in the USA include abortion, worker's rights, religion and state, the right to own firearms, and diverse representation. A so-called "political" game hones in on a sociopolitical cleavage, not just any random social issue. The crowd complains because it hits close to home because it takes a side between two competing narratives in a given political society, and that side is not the same sociopolitical side that the crowd is on. The social issue is therefore transformed to a political one because it is situating itself within the immediate sociopolitical cleavages of our current society. Not every social issue is a fire bell in the night.

I wouldnt say that, no. :-/
I mean maybe forums in general ... but this forum was created to share experiences and thoughts about game ...
Teoreticaly its fine to also share opinion about their marketing, but still ... you are 2y late, this ship is long gone and honestly i doubt anyone in Larian particulary care about this topic theese days.

I would use Will Smith slap as an example of simmilar situation.
I was completely on his side at first ... that other dude overstepped a line that should never be crossed, no matter if you do that in the name of humor ... (See the similarity ?)
But then i heared opinion of some woman on internet, who simply stated that from now on every comedian (and stand-up comedy in America, at least that get to us in Europe, is often build on ridiculing someone in the public) should be affraid that somewhere in that crowd sits another Will Smith, who cant control his temper.
And i must admit, that woman was right ... people get offended easily every day, and if those people will start such campaign against every joke that isnt "perfectly fine", or where someone "can find anything even little controversial" ... sooner or later, we will have no comedy at all ... and that is not world i would like to live. :-/

So my new statement for that situation is that they both overstepped ... IF Will would come to that stage and politely (even tho strictly) demanded that comedian (it not i dont want to say his name, i simply dont remember ) to apologize ...
I would stand up and aplaud him.
But his reaction was wrong, in long terms ... understandable, but still wrong.

Same i see here ...
Someone (Larian this time) made a joke and you disliked it ... that is okey.
But then you come here and start talking about politics, and stuff ... that is overstepping on the other side in my eyes ...
Yes i know you didnt travel to Belgia to slap Swens face.
Even tho gutter press would probably love such story.

But still, by bringing such topics up, you potenticaly can easily do more harm than help, in the long turn ... from my point of view, simply stating "i disliked it, and would appreciate if that would not happen again" would be perfectly fitting the situation.
Thats my two cents and probably all im going to say to this, i dont want to get too wrapped up.

Just want to throw a general broad word of encouragement here to refrain from getting into politics, incl social ones, as it's never a conversation that ends well online. And two threads have been closed of a similar topic of people getting a bit too excited with their opinions already.

As for OP, the original joke isn't (intended) to be politically loaded or anything like that. It's just an unfortunate moment of finding an observation funny in isolation of how generic the results of checking telemetry data turned out to be in aggregate, that is easy to have current sensitive real-world topics be imposed by our personal experiences. I was guilty of this too initially. So for what it's worth if my word counts, it's just an innocent observation of something they thought was funny, ending up being easily mistranslated to having more meaning than it actually does.

The only reason I continue to respond was because this
Got a pretty good chuckle out of me.
Also political science and philosophy shitposting because I can't resist.

There are really two "senses" to what one means when one talks about the "political" in a modern day cultural sense. There is one sense where "political," directly refers to the polis, the city, and the totality of its affairs. When we are using this sense of "political," we are referring to class conflict, the conflict between sexes, other gender-based conflict, justice issues, equity issues, the broad range of social and economic problems, etc. In the way that the "polis" is almost a stand-in for our understanding of local civilization, so too is "political" anything that pertains to the structure, origin, and operation of the local civilization. I am assuming this is what Amuro means when he/she/they discuss all media covering social issues and therefore being political.

There is another "sense" to the word "political" which does not refer to the affairs of the polis, but instead refers to actually being involved in the political process or discourse (e.g. When people say they aren't political. They are a member of the polis, so of course they are political in a descriptive sense, but they are not political in the involvement or discourse sense). It is important to note that while the overwhelming majority of media focuses on some social issues, the majority of media does not take a firm position on the major social issues dividing a population. Some of them do, but it is certainly not a rule by any stretch of the imagination. In this way, people are complaining that a piece of media, rather than discussing alternative views on sociopolitical issues, is taking an active, affirmative decision in a contentious cultural and political divide. People have political opinions which govern how they live their lives. In the overwhelming majority of cases, these political opinions differ from my own. But if I involve myself in their debate and stake out a particular position, I shouldn't be surprised if people then accuse me of being functionally political because I am taking an active position on an essentially contested issue. Whether or not it should be contested is not my concern, but it is. If I am releasing a product to an audience, and I stake out positions which are in favor of the political views of one part of the audience, but not the other part (where the percentage divide indicates both parties are of significant size/critical mass), then I am actively staking out a position against the worldview of a part of my customer base. Maybe it's justified, but it's still a very specific, very active statement on its own which is separate from other works in history talking about the social issues of their day and age.

Well said

I find it strange this particular topic is popping up all of a sudden.

As for politics there are plenty of social media options for those who want to engage in it, I vote (lol) we keep politics out of this forum.

I'm very late to the party when it comes to this thread, but hands down Larian guys have the best sense of humor. And this Tav is just hilarious. This dude became the face of many BG3 memes. 10/10 would create him as my dream crush in BG3 again.

I am still sad I missed the chance to answer that twit two years ago (ok, one and a half). That might have been a joke but my answer would be serious and the problem is still here. Those horns and tails Larian talks about are 1. all the same (just different length), 2. unattractive same. What did they expect? Tieflings are a very popular race in tabletop DnD, but in TT you can imagine them looking any way you want (just google "tiefling"). In BG3 you are stuck with one single choice - no wonder people refuse to use them. Give us different horns and eyes - then we will talk!