Guys, they're turning Metroid into Twilight.

[insanepurin]

Metroid: Other M - The Elephant in the Room

I suspect the unfortunate truth is that the glorification of abusive relationships and disempowered female characters has become prevalent in modern pop culture. Look at books like Twilight or Hush, Hush. Female characters, completely in the thrall of emotionally abusive (and sometimes physically abusive

Comments

[whitetux]

oh no nintendo what is this i don't even
this is sickening

[insanepurin]

HOW HAS NO ONE CALLED YOSHIO SAKAMOTO ON THIS

[militarypenguin]

That is so weird you mention that essay because I just read it myself a couple of days ago. Puts the game in a fascinating and disturbing perspective.

[insanepurin]

I read it today from Zar's journal. She's even more devastated about this because she grew up on Metroid and Samus means so much to her. It's... WRY. I think even if you don't know much about Metroid, you do know how badass Samus is from Smash Bros, and seeing her become a monologing Generic Whiny Protagonist Who Needs Her Man is so jarring.

[mintmouse]

oh man i am so irritated right now! i'd always considered samus as a great example of videogames Doing It Right by having a strong independent female character who wasn't overly sexualized, but this game, man. THIS GAME. ALL OF MY HATE.

[insanepurin]

It's... why take a video game character we've come to idolize and reduce her to this? I can't even ghdskjghdskjghskdgj

[swordianmaster]

The other, which I am very reluctant to believe, is that Sakamoto sees nothing wrong with this story, and believes that a relationship like Adam and Samus’ is an acceptable, even desirable one - that this is what caring looks like. If this is true, then Yoshio Sakamoto has much, much bigger personal problems than poor writing ability.

As far as I know, a large amount of Japan is LIKE this. I think that might be why past Metroid games always sold better in America than in Japan - we mesh with the idea of an independent, strong female lead far better than Japan's culture, which is, at its root, still built on top of the honor and caste systems of the samurai days.

Likewise, it's rather telling that Stephanie Meyer wrote Twilight with COMPLETE SERIOUSNESS.

[insanepurin]

At the risk of my sounding culturally ignorant, why is America more comfortable with the idea of an independent female than Japan? I don't know, enlighten me, I'm extremely uncomfortable right now.

[swordianmaster]

I don't think it's an independent female so much as an independent anything, from what little I know; it's just that "young adult male" is the judeo-christian norm - possibly the norm in pre-Americanized Japanese culture, for that matter, for "strongest in the family unit" so that's what we get for many games. Anyone who doesn't conform to that shouldn't be allowed to be strong, for the same reason that same-sex couples in America "shouldn't be allowed" to be held on equal footing.

I may entirely be talking out my ass here, as well, and anyone who actually has knowledge of social sciences and sociology can come out and tell me I'm wrong at any time. But think about how often Japan has STRONG female roles that aren't a) psychotic (See FLCL or anything Haruhi) or b) only strong until the point that they get involved with a male (99% of the Ranma cast, the females in Cowboy Bebop and Trigun). Or both, of course.

It even confuses Metroid fans!

[avroillusion]

Adam usually actually comes off as more dutiful and business-like than neglectful or malicious in all his previous portrayals. I'd blame Sakamoto's awful, animu style storytelling and his desire to cram all the character traits and development that Adam and Samus have gotten over the span of the Metroid series into one game. For some godawful reason he thought that Other M was going to bring Metroid into the mainstream so he wanted to make sure us "casuals" were made to understand the characters and the relationships that were actually already previously established.

All previous incarnations of Adam are shown to be warm and supportive when dealing with Samus personally in contrast to his normally cold persona. Sakamoto just went all like "Samus has an emotional side, too!" or "Adam can be a hardass, too!" And he breaks every tried-and-true narrative rule in the process. :/ His presentation of the Metroid hatchling storyline from Super is just as bad.