Creative works you enjoyed until politics happened - "How politics made me hate Welcome to Nightvale and other things"

[Slimy Time]

The closest thing to real, historical "warrior women" would probably be someone like the Soviet sniper women and female pilots who did decent work against the Germans. Notice that they were in combat positions that didn't require much physical strength.

I remember a few years ago (Obama era iirc) the Marines did a series of tests with groups of full male squads and mixed gender squads. Tests were things including logistical (get shit from point A to B asap) to loading heavy gun and clearing buildings. Take 3 guesses which squad performed worse in almost every test, the first two don't count.

I mentioned in a prior comment here that probably the only concrete example where warrior women were expected were the wives of samurai. They were trained in the usage of the naginata (ergo it's current association in Japanese culture as a women's weapon) and expected during times of war to take care of their husband's home or estate. That included fighting any bandits or enemies who wanted to raid or rob his home. A lot of the others, Amazons for example, were warped or mixed by fictitious stories. TBH I wouldn't be surprised if women were taught combat in certain cultures and times, but were not brought to fight. Times back then were unbelievably shit, and having your wife know how to defend herself and your home would be very desirable.

Joan of Arc is a meme. Wasn't she paired or associated/controlled by Gilles de Rais, a fucking necrophiliac paedo? Pretty sure that outside of the folk lore and somewhat mythic portrayals of her in art and media as a woman in knights armour, she was a figurehead who never fought, and may have been a schizo. IIRC she was given the choice of going to prison as a woman (and then being raped constantly) or being declared a heretic and burned, chose the former, then switched to the latter and was burned.

 

[Doctor Placebo]

I remember a few years ago (Obama era iirc) the Marines did a series of tests with groups of full male squads and mixed gender squads. Tests were things including logistical (get shit from point A to B asap) to loading heavy gun and clearing buildings. Take 3 guesses which squad performed worse in almost every test, the first two don't count.

Even the Soviets and other organized military forces that employed women out of necessity have generally known better than to deploy them in mixed units with men. That's opening the door to a lot more trouble.

Joan of Arc is a meme. Wasn't she paired or associated/controlled by Gilles de Rais, a fucking necrophiliac paedo? Pretty sure that outside of the folk lore and somewhat mythic portrayals of her in art and media as a woman in knights armour, she was a figurehead who never fought, and may have been a schizo. IIRC she was given the choice of going to prison as a woman (and then being raped constantly) or being declared a heretic and burned, chose the former, then switched to the latter and was burned.

If by "meme" you mean her influence was made up after the fact, that's not true. Plenty of contemporary sources on both sides of the conflict didn't take her lightly. But again, this wasn't because she was running around chopping off the heads of Englishmen. It was because of the effect she had on the French soldiers' morale, and that was because of both her skill as a public speaker (a very religious themed one), and her complete confidence in French victory (which may have been because she was touched in the head). Basically, because this 90 pound girl was so absolutely confident and fearless, the French soldiers were inspired to be too, when they'd previously been at their lowest point. Morale matters, and it mattered even more back then. A lot of times the winner of a conflict was simply the side that chose to keep fighting instead of running. The psychology of war is no less real than the physical side of it, and in that regard figurehead leaders like Joan of Arc matter.

As for being given the choice to go to prison or be burned, that never happened. After being captured by the Burgundians, she was moved between several prisons of both the Burgundians and the English and tried to escape multiple times, before the English put her on trial for heresy. The plan of the trial was always to kill her. She was already in prison, so why would they even bother with an elaborate trial just to ask her if she wanted to be executed or go back to prison?

 

[c-no]

The entire superhero genre (minus The Punisher, of course)

Granted, I hated the MCU practically from the get-go but I could still enjoy some superhero movies and shows and even the occasional comic books I'd occasionally read on a lark before the capeshit in general became one of those SJW shibboleths alongside Steven Universe, punk and emo culture, or Harry Potter (at least until JK pissed off the troons) with Marvel in particular being one of the wokester icons thanks to the popularity of the MCU and Disney's woke take on things in general.

The only comic icon that wasn't taken over was ironically a Marvel standby and also the one who I actually would semi-regularly read the comics of, and of course I'm talking about The Punisher

Even then, the right-wing Boomer conservatives and unironic "boogaloo" types are pretty cringe with their Punisher skulls although it's slightly less awful than the dangerhair punk girls or the bearded soy face bugmen who are zealot Marvel consoomers. Slightly.

I'm not much in enjoying superhero shit but seeing how people went apeshit over the genre such as one handful thinking not liking Captain Marvel means your some incel or another handful going on rants with how the Punisher must be some sort of full on fascist despite the fact the Punisher himself doesn't even like any fascist save for a dead one makes me feel the genre really needs to at least have a deep cleaning.

It bothers me how saturated with SJW faggotry tabletop games have gotten. We never should have let normies in to play. There was just an article that came out recently about people whining that all the different races you can play as in D&D are actually racist and problematic. Ridiculous.

I could get the idea that the problem with some DnD race could be on the wording they use to describe something such as orcs or the drow but then again, that problem there then is wording and not whatever racism they believe has to be in DnD such as "Drow = Black People." Then again, I'm pretty sure that if their problem is a wholly evil race, maybe they can realize a wholly evil race doesn't have to be some stand in for a non-white group or learn that having some wholly evil race, as bad as that trope is, isn't gonna tell one to normalize racism beyond whatever idiot thinks it makes it okay for him to think "orcs are black people."

 

[SouthernBitchBob]

Honestly, much as I really enjoyed it back in the day, I blame a lot of the modern female character blueprint on a hideous mutation from the Buffy/Xena/whatever era of TV. You've got a teenage girl with superpowers in the '90s. Neat, creative concepts with it, doesn't get too wokeshit too often, etc. And then you get a generation of writers who say they were inspired by it, churning out...what you see before you.

Now? I wait for the MadLibs to start filling in basically every single time a woman is introduced to any cast, for any entertainment medium. It's so predictable. Start the countdown clock, how long until we find out she's has [a degree in biochemistry] and is [a hacker research genius] who [is a black belt in 40 martial arts] and can [fight off 50 armored soldiers with a katana in a ballgown and heels] and [is a sour, dismissive bitch to male characters and the show's framing totally takes her side, and treats her like the victim giving a deserved dressing-down to someone who wronged her, especially if the dude didn't do anything]. I'm so, SO bored of Bitchy Man-Hating Ninja Genius Woman; it's becoming a personality singularity as far as writing female characters goes.

 

[Troonologist PhD]

having some wholly evil race, as bad as that trope is

Off topic, but why is this bad? I’ve seen a lot of people complain about pure evil races before and I never understand what the problem is.

 

[Tour of Italy]

Karl from InRange TV seems dead set on chipping away at my enjoyment of his content by consistently being a self-righteous asshole, especially with this Covid bullshit. He's more interested in showing off how virtuous and right he is than he is making any kind of compelling case.

 

[Jason Wynn]

Off topic, but why is this bad? I’ve seen a lot of people complain about pure evil races before and I never understand what the problem is.

The only way I can see it as "bad" is it might come off as just lazy writing. Having a race that's nothing but Disney hero goody goodies, or another that's cackling, mustache twirling evil just seems like amateur writing. The Drow and Orcs in my campaigns were always house ruled as being neutral, with some orc clans and Drow houses following creeds that could be construed as evil. Actual evil never thinks of itself as evil, they see what they're doing as good, bit they've crossed the line so far ago they can't tell the difference anymore between the two, that makes for far more interesting story potential than your standard evil "kill, rape and pillage anything that moves because fuck you" mindset.

Then again, the cynical part of me just sees leftists being their usual closet racist selves. They see a race of pig men or completely black elves and their mind automatically goes to rioting uncivilized black people.

 

[Orion Balls]

When people decided that the stories in Welcome to the Monkey House were instructional manuals on how we should live instead of simply being speculative dystopian fiction, I couldn't really read it anymore.

 

[c-no]

The only way I can see it as "bad" is it might come off as just lazy writing. Having a race that's nothing but Disney hero goody goodies, or another that's cackling, mustache twirling evil just seems like amateur writing. The Drow and Orcs in my campaigns were always house ruled as being neutral, with some orc clans and Drow houses following creeds that could be construed as evil. Actual evil never thinks of itself as evil, they see what they're doing as good, bit they've crossed the line so far ago they can't tell the difference anymore between the two, that makes for far more interesting story potential than your standard evil "kill, rape and pillage anything that moves because fuck you" mindset.

Then again, the cynical part of me just sees leftists being their usual closet racist selves. They see a race of pig men or completely black elves and their mind automatically goes to rioting uncivilized black people.

That's pretty much it. Making a wholly evil or good race would be weak writing but I'd also cut it some slack if one came up with something interesting such as "the evil race in this setting is literally all evil spirits that don't give a damn about morality that managed to get a form and still revel in the vile things they do." The cynic in me also feels that some people should at least consider that the problem itself could just be more of writing than some normalization of racism.

 

[Troonologist PhD]

Actual evil never thinks of itself as evil, they see what they're doing as good, bit they've crossed the line so far ago they can't tell the difference anymore between the two

To which I have to ask “so what?” Just because they believe evil is good and good is evil doesn’t make them any more sympathetic. See the far left as a contemporary example.

than your standard evil "kill, rape and pillage anything that moves because fuck you" mindset.

Orcs and other races see that as good just as the Vikings saw it as a good thing. Doesn’t make it not-evil.

 

[Xarpho]

There's a scene near the end of Rise of Skywalker, where Poe and the "resistance" fight the mass-built emperor fleet. He goes "Remember! they win if they separate us! they win if we give up!" and all I kept thinking was gee, maybe a Vote4Bernie banner would pop out of the millennium falcon now.

edit: I would've loved to add a segment titled "What CBS has done to Star Trek" but I'm afraid neither English nor any language has words for what Kurzman and co. have wrought.

Star Trek has been always a bit political (and not just in a "black woman having a leading role" way, the "current politics reflect writing" way), and even going back to Voyager in the 1990s, there's always been at least one bullshit episode that reflected it. Obviously, it got way worse as time went on, but Star Wars was a fucking tragedy. The prequel trilogy, as bad as it was, was bound to certain principles including the creation of Darth Vader and the rise of the heroes of OT, and yes, they weren't good (except for the nostalgia you had for Star Wars Episode I and the comparatively idyllic world of 1999) and had some silly elements that damaged the OT (midichlorians, Darth Vader being a whiny bitch), but the ST trilogy took everything good from the OT, threw it out, and proceeded to rape its corpse. This was only compounded by the media machine running story after story that if you didn't enjoy the ST, you were a subhuman piece of shit.

 

[Pissmaster]

I had to quit listening to a lot of podcasts I used to enjoy because they started tardraging more and more. I don't listen to a single podcast about video games, everything I used to listen to and tried to pick up since '16 either has insufferable hosts, or has already ended.

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I would fucking love an RPG where you can get sidetracked to do woke bullshit, and if you do, the enemy forces just get more and more powerful until they become practically unstoppable.

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

Star Trek has been always a bit political (and not just in a "black woman having a leading role" way, the "current politics reflect writing" way), and even going back to Voyager in the 1990s, there's always been at least one bullshit episode that reflected it. Obviously, it got way worse as time went on, but Star Wars was a fucking tragedy. The prequel trilogy, as bad as it was, was bound to certain principles including the creation of Darth Vader and the rise of the heroes of OT, and yes, they weren't good (except for the nostalgia you had for Star Wars Episode I and the comparatively idyllic world of 1999) and had some silly elements that damaged the OT (midichlorians, Darth Vader being a whiny bitch), but the ST trilogy took everything good from the OT, threw it out, and proceeded to rape its corpse. This was only compounded by the media machine running story after story that if you didn't enjoy the ST, you were a subhuman piece of shit.

Problem with Discover was its hamfisted political messaging is the same as all the other shit being pounded into our skulls, it's not well done, and there's nothing thought-provoking about it.

 

[Emperor Julian]

I can't really think of any works which are specifically ruined by politics since I can enjoy diverse philosophical views which deviate from my own. Although some of my perspectives are more genrally represented so I can empathize with the frustations some people may feel.

That said their is an overlap between preachyness and bad art, most detective drama's suck because they can't stop providing uninsightful commentry on "beating women is bad" or "that topical thing in the news is bad."-their's a reason why the wire is way better than csi despite being saturated with politics. It's usually a symptom of deeper problems with writting. Last jedi didnt suck because of it's political message, it sucked because the writting was a half hearted deconstruction of star wars which failed to integrate into the franchise and setting, shit jokes and had plotholes you could holdo a deathstar through.

When you say stuff like the "force is female." or "this is empowering for young girls." what you're really saying is "I have nothing to say because this franchise has overstayed it's welcome." I don't loose interest when I see this stuff it just provides a really signifier that this franchise is past its prime.

with that in mind
-Doctor who
-Star trek
-Star wars
-MCU

 

[Slowboat to China]

I don't think that the historical exclusion of women from combat roles is misogynistic at all, since it's a simple fact that someone would have had to stay and care for the home (Fetching water, grinding wheat, making clothing, feeding animals, feeding children, cleaning, going to market, keeping the fire, cooking etc etc.), and women being less physically strong were better suited to this role. It sucks that women didn't get to do cool shit, but honestly just surviving childbirth was a feat in itself so I think they earned the right to not get clubbed to death in a battle.

Part of it in addition to all that is that men are expendable, women are not when it comes to producing the next generation. A woman can only give birth once every nine months and once she pregnant, that's it, she's not producing any more kids. Guys don't have this issue. He can knock up 10 different women. If nations or regions go to war, you send those you can afford to lose. It's one of the reasons if you look at most cultures around the world, those in power had harems or multiple wives. With death, disease, war and all these other factors, I need to have an heir, so I'll fuck all these women and hope one of them produced an heir.

There's a great book called "Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years", which is all about the history of weaving and textiles. It traces how things like spinning and weaving were almost exclusively associated with women in a number of different ancient cultures. It also pointed out something that I hadn't really thought about before, in terms of female warriors: even if a woman was as strong as a man in every other aspect, she still has to carry the baby, which makes her slow and poses a danger to the unborn child. As a result, "women's work" came to mean work that could be done at the village or while protected. Men were stronger, but also less hampered by the reproductive process ... And, in some societies, more expendable.

Scythians and Sarmatians and other iterations of the nomad did have warrior women, but among ancient societies it seems to have been the exception rather than the rule. And these women were often on horseback and fighting with bows--a great equalizer, as Colonel Colt would doubtless tell you. Though there were others ... Funny how everyone seems to be sleeping on the issue of the Dahomey Amazons, but I guess those gals got memory hole'd with the whole "assisting the slave trade" thing.

Finally, to get back on topic: when I was young and dumb(er), I really liked the "Artemis Fowl" books. Having a villain protagonist slowly evolve into an antihero is something I enjoy. But the books suddenly took a heavy turn into eco-sperging, and together with the boring recurring villains, that made me stop reading. I don't want to have my semi-sociopathic, manipulative bad guy risking his life to save a fucking endangered lemur.

 

[Jeff Boomhauer]

A lot of my current interests aren't too affected by politics yet, but there are some franchises that I have enjoyed in the past that have become shells of their former selves.

I haven't been a huge Star Wars fan since I was a lad, but people in this thread and especially the Star Wars Grieving thread have summed up my opinions on Disney's take of the franchise.

It may have stopped being funny long, long ago, but I miss when The Simpsons was unmemorable and unfunny, rather than now, where it's woke, cringe, and unfunny.

Saturday Night Live is similar in that it hasn't been funny in a long time, but I remember giving up on it around the time of the 08 election, where one-sided, unfunny political bullshit had to be shoehorned into every show.

I'm personally uninterested in the MCU after Endgame, but I dread what will happen in the future, especially in the inevitable Black Panther 2.

 

[Doctor Placebo]

I could get the idea that the problem with some DnD race could be on the wording they use to describe something such as orcs or the drow but then again, that problem there then is wording and not whatever racism they believe has to be in DnD such as "Drow = Black People." Then again, I'm pretty sure that if their problem is a wholly evil race, maybe they can realize a wholly evil race doesn't have to be some stand in for a non-white group or learn that having some wholly evil race, as bad as that trope is, isn't gonna tell one to normalize racism beyond whatever idiot thinks it makes it okay for him to think "orcs are black people."

The Drow thing is especially funny because one of the biggest things about the Drow that makes them evil is that they're a slaver society. But since they're dark skinned, live in a shithole, and sacrifice people to their gods, I guess it makes them a little too much like the decent, upstanding POC slavers still operating today in places like Libya, and not the absolutely halal to demonize white slavers of a couple centuries ago.

What I really want to happen is some woke people in the tabletop game business (maybe Grand Wizards of the Coast, since they're currently the biggest woke as fuck company, although far from the only one) a tabletop RPG evil race that's based on white Europeans in a very heavy handed way: slavers, pale skin, racist, rich, etc. Then they get accused of antisemitism. It's so in line with current year I'm amazed it hasn't happened yet.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

The Drow thing is especially funny because one of the biggest things about the Drow that makes them evil is that they're a slaver society. But since they're dark skinned, live in a shithole, and sacrifice people to their gods, I guess it makes them a little too much like the decent, upstanding POC slavers still operating today in places like Libya, and not the absolutely halal to demonize white slavers of a couple centuries ago.

What I really want to happen is some woke people in the tabletop game business (maybe Grand Wizards of the Coast, since they're currently the biggest woke as fuck company, although far from the only one) a tabletop RPG evil race that's based on white Europeans in a very heavy handed way: slavers, pale skin, racist, rich, etc. Then they get accused of antisemitism. It's so in line with current year I'm amazed it hasn't happened yet.

I thought the Drow were based on the Svartalfar of Norse mythology? Dark skinned, pale haired, living deep underground, skilled in magic and artifice and crafting, but fundamentally untrustworthy. The idea that Drow have black skin and white hair refers to the Prose Edda making reference to the "home of the black elves."

But then, because Forgotten Realms is Ed Greenwood's magical realm, and role players are thirsty virgins, the AD&D book The Drow of the Underdark comes along. They now worship the goddess of spiders and the cover features a couple of her priestesses almost wearing some skintight spider web leotards with masses of hairspray in, and the whole of Drow society is turned into basically a deadly decadent court with extra BDSM. I mean, a blessed weapon of Lolth is called a Tentacle Rod and is basically a six-pronged attack dildo.

(Oddly enough, the Druchii or Warhammer Dark Elves are more like ancient Sparta, and more pale and sinister than white on black. A society that relies on an army of slaves to do the legwork to support a highly trained and regimented military that practices on its own slaves every now and then, and with lashings of social Darwinism and a culture that feeds off its own degeneracy. Even their monsters are based on those in Greek mythology - medusae, hydras, sea serpents, manticores, etc. The sorceresses in BDSM gear and spiky architecture is meant to be a dark mirror of the crystal spires and togas and more Athenian theme of the High Elves. Though this being Warhammer they're not that much different; the High Elves believe they're the superior species and pity the lesser races, while the Dark Elves know they're the superior species and just enslave the worthless monkey people.)

 

[Doctor Placebo]

I thought the Drow were based on the Svartalfar of Norse mythology? Dark skinned, pale haired, living deep underground, skilled in magic and artifice and crafting, but fundamentally untrustworthy. The idea that Drow have black skin and white hair refers to the Prose Edda making reference to the "home of the black elves."

But then, because Forgotten Realms is Ed Greenwood's magical realm, and role players are thirsty virgins, the AD&D book The Drow of the Underdark comes along. They now worship the goddess of spiders and the cover features a couple of her priestesses almost wearing some skintight spider web leotards with masses of hairspray in, and the whole of Drow society is turned into basically a deadly decadent court with extra BDSM. I mean, a blessed weapon of Lolth is called a Tentacle Rod and is basically a six-pronged attack dildo.

(Oddly enough, the Druchii or Warhammer Dark Elves are more like ancient Sparta, and more pale and sinister than white on black. A society that relies on an army of slaves to do the legwork to support a highly trained and regimented military that practices on its own slaves every now and then, and with lashings of social Darwinism and a culture that feeds off its own degeneracy. Even their monsters are based on those in Greek mythology - medusae, hydras, sea serpents, manticores, etc. The sorceresses in BDSM gear and spiky architecture is meant to be a dark mirror of the crystal spires and togas and more Athenian theme of the High Elves. Though this being Warhammer they're not that much different; the High Elves believe they're the superior species and pity the lesser races, while the Dark Elves know they're the superior species and just enslave the worthless monkey people.)

You and I both know that the people complaining about Drow and Orcs don't care about any of that shit. They don't care about experiencing some strange, historically inspired fictional world. To them tabletop RPG's are just a vehicle for their current year power fantasies. It's why these people keep inserting trans rights and gay marriage into medieval inspired civilizations, and you never see them interested in roleplaying any kind of morals that go against modern progressive ones. It would make a lot more sense for them to play some modern setting (and Vampire: The Masquerade did draw a lot of these people back in the day) but since DnD and medieval fantasy are the most popular and basic bitch entry level tabletop RPG's, a lot of these people naturally end up spending all their time playing those because they're basic bitches. Which would be tolerable if they'd keep it to their own groups and didn't keep trying to force everyone else in the hobby to play their way.

 

[Jason Wynn]

What I really want to happen is some woke people in the tabletop game business (maybe Grand Wizards of the Coast, since they're currently the biggest woke as fuck company, although far from the only one) a tabletop RPG evil race that's based on white Europeans in a very heavy handed way: slavers, pale skin, racist, rich, etc. Then they get accused of antisemitism. It's so in line with current year I'm amazed it hasn't happened yet.

IIRC, they kinda already did something like that in the 3e Book of Vile Darkness. The Vashar are a race of complete evil who exist solely to rape, murder, destroy and corrupt. They're seen as a failed experiment by the gods and abandoned by the divine. They're described as being only fair to very white in skin tone.