This is stream of consciousness, open and direct jotting down of things I’ve said multiple times. I might miss some important details, or even get some of my facts wrong because of how much time has passed, so please verify anything that sounds off (and probably even things that don’t). This thing goes long and has pictures and videos, so enter my rant at your peril!
I complain a lot about 3rd Birthday. It’s the biggest complaint I level about Squeenix, every single time. Many people don’t know why it’s such a big deal to me, and the ones that do think I talk about it way too much to the point of annoyance.
I need to give a lot of important background. This is Aya Brea.
Aya Brea was a badass. As a tough, smart cop, she didn’t shy away from a fight, and she didn’t need anyone to force her into it. She saw a problem, she went after it. Her own innate drive brought her to risk her life and do the right thing, saving the whole world in the process. Not only that, she cared enough to take in a clone of herself in as her own daughter when she could’ve just left her. Aya Brea was one of the best, coolest, most badass female protagonists of the PS1 era.
This is “Aya Brea” according to 3rd Birthday.
That is not Aya Brea. 3rd Birthday went out of its way to not only overly sexualize and fetishize her in the design, it also went out of its way to infantilize her in the story. And I’m about to elaborate on exactly how.
There’s a hell of a lot more to how Aya was sexualized and fetishized than shown here. 3rd Birthday comes with a “clothes-ripping-off” mechanic. When this mechanic became a scandal, the producer, Yoshinori Kitase, claimed the mechanic was there to be “plausible and realistic.” One problem: according to the game’s story, Aya is possessing various soldiers on the field. What the player sees is just her “ghost.” There is absolutely no reason for the mechanic to exist other than sex appeal.
As for that maid costume up there, it is one of many costumes, some more sexualized than others. There are two important details about those costumes to cover. First, Famitsu preview spreads leading up to 3rd Birthday’s release in Japan made whatever new fetish outfit they wanted to highlight that month into the central piece of each article. This was after Kitase’s claim about the “clothes-ripping-off” mechanic. Second, the voices and movements change depending on costume in the Japanese version. Sounds pretty cool, right? Yeah, it loses its coolness factor when it involves Aya saying incredibly submissive lines while dressed as a maid.
Last piece on the sexualization bracket, just to round it out: months before 3rd Birthday’s release, the team claimed there would be no shower scene. Then, shortly before the game hit stores in Japan…. they added it. And this is the shower scene they added.
That is literally verging on softcore porn. The gratuitous angles and shots, the grunts, the foggy shower door, it’s literally nothing but reducing Aya to fap fuel. Compare that with the Parasite Eve II shower scene for yourselves.
That’s just one half of the equation. Let’s get to the other: infantilization.
From the start, 3rd Birthday “Aya” is not allowed to be her own independent woman. She’s operating under the thumb of a man named Hyde Bohr, a man who it turns out was manipulating an amnesiac “Aya” quite easily given how submissive she is to command. When she goes into combat, she’s absolutely terrified about having to face monsters. That is not Aya. The badass Aya faced down the likes of Mitochondria Eve without batting an eye, even when the whole concept of mutated beasts was new to her. This “Aya” can’t even look at a monster without cowering in fear.
It doesn’t just stop there. When people lord authority over her at the start, she takes it. When people around her say sexually harassing remarks, she says and does nothing about it. One of the worst bits of 3rd Birthday’s script involves Maeda from the first game rewritten into the sort of guy that literally talks about how he wants to taste Aya’s tears. The character is written to say this as if it’s not incredibly fucking wrong and creepy.
Now, here’s where I point out something a lot of people that know about the game are bound to point out: “Aya” in 3rd Birthday was actually Eve Brea. The story of the game has it that they switched bodies, and that’s why “Aya” acts so unlike herself, because she really isn’t Aya.
But that doesn’t absolve the problem. It just adds more.
First of all, having Aya and Eve swap bodies is 1) saying Aya only matters for her body, and 2) trying to turn a cool mature woman into a much younger girl. Aya doesn’t even get her body back in the end; the real Aya dies, Eve remains in her body.
Second, that story turn does nothing to change the marketing or what that marketing said. If you didn’t play the game all the way to the end or hear about it from someone, then according to 3rd Birthday’s marketing and the story up to that reveal, Eve in Aya’s body is really Aya. The marketing and story up to that point send the message that Aya is innately submissive, terrified by combat, lets people sexually harass her and really doesn’t mind the idea of wearing fetish outfits into battle. The marketing alone sends a message that Aya is a sex object to be ogled and drooled over and nothing more.
It doesn’t matter if she “gets stronger” as the story progresses. None of that changes that Aya Brea from Parasite Eve would not do such things in the first place.
My final thoughts. If 3rd Birthday and its idea of “Aya Brea” were an entirely new IP, with an entirely new character, I wouldn’t haven given a shit. It could’ve done anything it wanted and I would’ve shrugged it off, or at worst mocked it. Hell, I might have even bought it in spite of the problems I cited above if that was the case.
It’s the way Squeenix utterly butchered Parasite Eve and Aya Brea and has absolutely no sense of decency to fix the mistake they made with 3rd Birthday that pisses me off. Before 3rd Birthday, Squeenix was touting how they planned to revive Parasite Eve as a full-fledged franchise again. After 3rd Birthday, all that talk stopped. They haven’t said or done anything with Parasite Eve since. They know they fucked up. They know how shitty 3rd Birthday was, how wrong it was, but instead of making up for it, they want to sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened.
For me, Squeenix is the symbol of everything wrong with Squeenix. There are many things they’ve fucked up over the past decade, but none of them are as horrible and perfectly symbolic as 3rd Birthday. They ruined an amazing franchise and character by trying to exploit it at the lowest common denominator. They lied about their intentions with the game, both with the “clothes-ripping-away” mechanic and with Motomu Toriyama claiming he was going to write a “cool, mature woman” with Aya. And when all was said and done, instead of doing the right thing and trying to make up for 3rd Birthday, they decided they should act like Parasite Eve and Aya Brea don’t even exist.
That is why I focus so much on 3rd Birthday, and why I refuse to buy Squeenix products until they make a Parasite Eve 3 starring Aya Brea where 3rd Birthday never even happened. They need to show me they give a damn about their IPs and consumers as more than something to exploit, and as the worst thing Squeenix has ever done, 3rd Birthday is where it counts. If they’re not ready to fix that mistake, then I’m not ready to trust them with my money.
?????? i am literally appalled. what poor image are they setting for america, i’m sorry. those girls don’t look like pole dancers SIR. i can’t stress enough how pissed i am.
Funny how the country of “freedom” can be ruled buy individuals’ religion and stupidity
they`re upset because she showed her KNEE?! HOW FAR DOES ONE HAVE TO SINK TO BE DISTURBED BY A KNEE?!
What the literal fuck
Conservative republicans: Muslims are barbaric how they make women cover so much ! Clearly an oppressive society making women submissive slaves, its ridiculous !!! Conservative republicans: …and they cannot show any of their feet outside of socks and YOU CAN SEE THEIR KNEES thats repulsive !!!
It’s important to verify things like this, especially if you don’t see it out of mainstream news sources. Something like this would’ve been everywhere in the news.
This is Andy Khouri he’s the former editor of Comics Alliance (the Kotaku of comics sites) and he’s now working as an editor at DC Comics because again the comics industry is in the shitter right now and they are trying to pander to SJW’s and feminists not realizing that SJW’s and feminists don’t really give two shits about comics and just want to complain about stuff because that’s all they know how to do.
You know what’s funny about this whole thing? Comics Alliance used to be very anti DC back in 2011 when the first issue of Red Hood and the Outlaws came out they trashed that first issue and it’s writer Scott Lobdell (even going so far as to publish a hit piece on him calling him a misogynist and sexist because of the way he depicted Starfire) so I don’t understand why anyone from DC would look at this fucking site and decide to hire someone from there to work as an editor.
Call me crazy but if I was someone who worked at DC and I saw someone trashing the stuff we were publishing I would ignore those people and try to not make contact with them because they’re a massive liability to the business. I wouldn’t bend over and hire someone who worked there to please the “progressives” because those people aren’t the main target demographic.
This is why I want to make it into the comic business to give people like myself who actually care about good writing and storytelling an alternative to this bullshit. We as comic fans deserve better than having our hobby be run by idiots who constantly defend con artists like Anita Sarkeesian and her ilk.
I kinda wish ComicGate was a thing because shit like this needs to fucking stop. But that’s the problem with the world that we live in companies are too scared of being called sexist, racist and homophobic that they have bow down and kiss “progressive” ass just to stay relevant in the media.
Well, you know, first of all, excellent job succinctly illustrating why you’re never going to work at DC.
Let’s look a bit further at Red Hood and the Outlaws #1. Not the issue itself – good lord, why would we subject anyone to rereading that piece of turgid shit. But rather, at the New 52 branding that DC is winding down this month. You know – the whole “let’s blow up the entire line and start from scratch with loads of advertising to see if we can revive our slowly dying sales numbers” initiative that DC undertook.
Because here’s the thing about the comic business you’re so eager to join in: it’s dying. Its sales are an insignificant fraction of what they were when comics were a major cultural force, and its audience is a slowly aging pool of white men. It’s a losing proposition. Kids don’t buy comics. Teenagers don’t buy comics. Virtually nobody buys comics but people who have been buying comics for decades.
And that’s what the New 52 was an attempt to correct. It was an attempt to shed most of the theorized reasons why comics weren’t drawing new readers and create something that would bring in new readers who loved superhero movies and would try superhero comics.
It didn’t. It momentarily re-energized the slowly dying base, then quickly declined to the same set of sad sack long-time readers. DC ran loads of marketing surveys around the New 52, and this was the overwhelming response.
Mind you, that didn’t stop them. For four years they nobly tried to make it work. And they didn’t care that they were accused of being sexist, racist, and homophobic. No, no – they mocked the fans who complained about it. Literally. They went to cons and made fun of the fans who asked about female representation. They doubled down on their idea of bringing in a new audience of twenty-something men with comics like Red Hood and the Outlaws, and then they tripled down on it. They tried and tried again.
And for their trouble? In July of 2011, before any of the New 52 material launched, DC pulled $6.74 million for their line. In January of 2015, they pulled $6.6 million. Oh, but get this – the comics industry as a whole grew in that time. July 2011 had $20.29 million for the top 300 comics. January 2015 had $26.87 million. DC has managed to shrink their share of a growing pie.
Meanwhile, over at Marvel, where a non-white editor in chief who came up via the Vertigo line back in the days when it was pulling in scads of new readers has been overseeing a publishing slate with a focus on diversity?
In July of 2011, $10.05 million. In December 2014? $10.65 million. (I went back a month for Marvel because their January 2015 numbers were ridiculously good due to Star Wars #1 – like, $15 million good.) And those numbers are ignoring digital, where it’s an established fact that books like Ms. Marvel do insanely good business. (Did you know, btw, that when you factor in digital Ms. Marvel outsells Uncanny X-Men? It’s true!)
So, shocker of shockers, after three and a half years of their Big Relaunch continuing the slow bleeding it was designed to avoid while Marvel scoops up a bigger piece of a growing pie and companies like Image ($0.77 million to $1.92 million over the same period) are similarly gobbling up market share by actually growing the dying industry, DC has changed direction. And made the smart move of hiring people who correctly identified what they were doing wrong three-and-a-half years ago instead of taking a self-defeating stance of blacklisting any critic who does their job and calls out what they see as lousy work.
So, you know. Good luck getting into an industry where what you want and what you value has proven itself repeatedly to be the path to the industry’s collapse, and what you hate is the only thing that’s looked like a future for the industry in over a decade. I’m sure you’re gonna do great. Especially now that you’ve written an angry screed about one of the editors at DC. Hope they’re nicer about that than you want them to be!
Still laughing at “I kinda wish ComicGate was a thing”.
When taking a tour through her mind, Polaris revealed to Earth’s allegedly most skilled telepath, Charles Xavier, that she had an
independent DNA test proving that Magneto was her father. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #431] Furthermore, in multiple alternate realities it is accepted as fact that she was his daughter, such as in the timelines of Mutant X, X-Men: The End, the home reality of Exiles’ version Polaris and one of the realities visited by that Polaris’ iteration of the team.
Magneto openly referred to her as his child to his X-Men allies in X-Men Legacy (1st series) #254-258.
Magneto even went so far as remarking that he believed he had been a
failure as a father to Polaris as well as his other children. [X-Men Legacy (1st series) #255]
Monet and Longshot used their powers to tandem to give Polaris back
her repressed memories of her parents’ death. In her memories, she
remembered Magneto returning for her after the crash and claiming that
her mother had potential beyond “just being the mother of his children.”
He told her that one day he would come back for her when she was ready
for the life he offered. [X-Factor (1st series) #243]
Once Polaris had the DNA test done, Magneto also named her his heir
off panel over her elder“legitimate” siblings that he had sired with
his late wife, Magda. This was stated by the surviving Genoshans in Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #443
when they named her their queen as per the “late” Magneto’s wishes.
Most monarchies practice a form of primogeniture, i.e the eldest living
legitimate male child inherits the throne, at that time Quicksilver.
Quicksilver’s daughter Luna’s claim to the throne would typically
supersede either of her aunts’. As Polaris is Magneto’s youngest child
and technically a bastard, Magneto naming her heir-apparent over
legitimate children and grandchildren is highly unusual as technically
she has the weakest claim.
Polaris said she felt an instant biological connection to Magneto,
despite her aversion to his behaviour. She said she could feel her
father’s blood in her veins. [X-Men (1st series) #49-52] Melodrama
aside, this was later reinforced during the Twelve Saga, when Magneto
in his weakened state was able to tap into her power. [X-Men (2nd series) #97]
Later, this connection between the two was referred to as a “magnetic
umbilical cord,” metaphorically indicating a parent-child connection. [Magneto: Dark Seduction #1-4]
Polaris also has magnetic powers. While not necessarily an
indication of a biological relationship, it is quite common for second
generation mutants to receive a facsimile of their parents’ powers, such
as Banshee and Siryn, Jean Grey and Rachel Summers, Archangel and Eimin
and Uriel etc. Usually, though, these mutants have an additional
mutation or ability, in Polaris’ case her hair (or, arguably, her latent
super-strength).
Evidence against Polaris being Magneto’s daughter:
In the Age of Apocalypse reality, Dark Beast did genetic scans, proving Polaris was not Magneto’s daughter. [Factor-X #2]
The Magneto that first claimed Lorna Dane was his daughter turned out to be a robot in X-Men (1st series) #58. It was indicated that the robotic doppelgänger of Magneto was created by Machinesmith at several points. [Captain America (1st series) #247 and #368]
Magneto himself declared to the X-Men that it was a robot that employed Mesmero and claimed to be Lorna’s father in X-Men (1st series) #112. Also, according to Magneto, he was in the Savage Land when this other “Magneto” claimed Lorna Dane as his daughter. [X-Men (1st series) #63].
Magneto said he did not know who Polaris was in X-Men: The Hidden Years #12. This was shortly after the robot claimed that he was her father.
There aren’t many games I love the way I love Parasite Eve. The second one was great too, if you could get over the control scheme, but the first is just… stunning. Even today, pitch perfect. There’re two reasons it was amazing for me: Aya Brea, who was my favorite videogame character for years, and the deep knowledge of biology on display. The science was not only notable and fascinating on its own, it added a mote of believability to the dark, strange shit afoot. And it was a story about women. Fundamentally and inalienably. I wouldn’t have put it in these terms then, but now I recognize how huge that was. It used both scientific fact and cultural constructions of motherhood to tell this story that was totally unlike anything else in the sea of dicks that gaming was and more or less still is.
So while there are a lot of games I dislike or have complaints with, not since my early teens have I hated a game down to its very core the way I hate 3rd Birthday. Aya Brea, who I have to stress, was my fucking hero for a few years in the late 90s and early 00s, was hollowed out and exploited, and the science was replaced with bland squarenix magic asswater. This game’s been out for years and I still get waves of resentment over it.
salarta 