Just discontinued subscription due to Wuk and increased wokeness across SE corp.

[ZephyrMenodora]

The concept of "woke" is also most likely why an entire expansion was centered around such an unlikable character, and why, (at least for English), the voice actor was chosen to play Wuk Lamat despite lacking the required talent; "diversity" over meritocracy. (Even the character design of Wuk Lamat shows that some thought was put into ticking "diversity" boxes, such as character model, weapon poses, upper body clothing somewhere between a sports bra and a chest binder, as well as the character concept itself--a quasi-androgynous masculinized female (?) Mary Sue.) "Wokeism" is also certainly why, be it in these forums or anywhere else in the real world, straight-white-male-Caucasians, those resembling that category, or those who believe that diversity is the indirect effect of a population's constituency--not an overt goal used to subvert or oppress the native population, are not permitted to criticize those within the panoply of the critical race theory hierarchy without being baselessly accused of some type of discrimination.

I don't think it is really wokeness as far as the MSQ focusing on Wuk. I think perhaps they wanted to highlight the new race that was one of the selling points of the expansion so put a Female Hrothgar as the lead of the NPCs.

The poor writing though is responsible for the Mary Sue many of us did not enjoy. But we've had Mary Sues long before "wokeness" was even a thing and I think it's just bad writing.

As far as how Female Hrothgars are portrayed, maybe it is for diversity and to make choosing to play one a more meaningful decision. We have lots of cutesy girls and I think people who wanted female hrothgar as playable expected them to be more fierce and warrior-like given how the men are portrayed.

The English casting is another issue though, so I do question how Sena got through the casting process and that they could not have found someone with the emotional range for the role like JP and German.

[Pepperblue]

I don't get the argument that focusing on a female lead automatically makes a storyline woke.

Are people forgetting that the literal main character, the never losing hero Warrior of Light, can be a woman?

Is the WoL woke?! I don't get it

[TKOtheKDR]

No, I've been trying to point out to you that you're completely ignoring that old adage about "never judge a book by its cover" and unironically posted a comment effectively saying: "This guy used the term woke as a criticism, and therefore is a bigot." It's been said many times in this thread that the ones who are claiming the most empathy, care and love for their fellow man are also the ones throwing labels, spewing the most toxic vitriol and actively bullying other members of the FFXIV community along the grounds of political opinion. Every time the hypocrisy is pointed out, we get "muh PaRaDoX oF tOlErAnCe" as if having a name for your dehumanising behaviour somehow excuses it. This is why the pushback against activists is so hard amongst the gaming community... We don't want your nonsense here, we just want to play video games and escape from the monotonous existence of life, but you continually don't allow us to do that by forcing real-world political issues into the forefront of these games...

[Quote abbreviated due to character count.]

This reminds me of a webcomic that I can't exactly remember, and whose search terms have probably scrubbed it from the internet. It's a multi-panel time lapse that shows:

1. Males create niche hobby focused on something entirely based on their particular interests.
2. Females decry hobbyists as sexist and preventing them from engaging in the hobby.
3. Males state that females were never excluded, just that the interest never appealed to them.
4. Females are now engaged in the hobby, but start to police the tone and content of the hobby because they are "uncomfortable".
5. Males are ultimately kicked out of the hobby they started, bereft of the resources they poured into it, and start a new hobby.
6. [A repeat of panel 1.]

It's supposed to be a fantasy world. Can't we just crawl dungeons, kill bosses, and get treasure without someone shoving "social justice" (AKA cultural Marxism) in our faces?

BTW-Cultural Marxism is not antisemitic, despite what Wikipedia says. Anecdotally, I first heard the term from a Jewish person. Cultural Marxism is a revolutionary leftist idea that traditional culture is the source of oppression in the modern world. Cultural Marxism is often linked to an insistence upon political correctness, multiculturalism, and perpetual attacks on the foundations of culture: the nuclear family, marriage, patriotism, traditional morality, law and order, etc. Cultural Marxists are assumed to be committed to establishing economic Marxism, in which case their cultural attacks are a necessary preparation for their ultimate goal. Cultural Marxism can be seen through the degradation of Russian/Soviet culture as the Soviet Union evolved under Lenin and Stalin.

[ZephyrMenodora]

This reminds me of a webcomic that I can't exactly remember, and whose search terms have probably scrubbed it from the internet. It's a multi-panel time lapse that shows:

1. Males create niche hobby focused on something entirely based on their particular interests.
2. Females decry hobbyists as sexist and preventing them from engaging in the hobby.
3. Males state that females were never excluded, just that the interest never appealed to them.
4. Females are now engaged in the hobby, but start to police the tone and content of the hobby because they are "uncomfortable".
5. Males are ultimately kicked out of the hobby they started, bereft of the resources they poured into it, and start a new hobby.
6. [A repeat of panel 1.]

It's supposed to be a fantasy world. Can't we just crawl dungeons, kill bosses, and get treasure without someone shoving "social justice" (AKA cultural Marxism) in our faces?

BTW-Cultural Marxism is not antisemitic, despite what Wikipedia says. Anecdotally, I first heard the term from a Jewish person. Cultural Marxism is a revolutionary leftist idea that traditional culture is the source of oppression in the modern world. Cultural Marxism is often linked to an insistence upon political correctness, multiculturalism, and perpetual attacks on the foundations of culture: the nuclear family, marriage, patriotism, traditional morality, law and order, etc. Cultural Marxists are assumed to be committed to establishing economic Marxism, in which case their cultural attacks are a necessary preparation for their ultimate goal. Cultural Marxism can be seen through the degradation of Russian/Soviet culture as the Soviet Union evolved under Lenin and Stalin.

What confuses me is that MMOs always had a strong female population. Most of my good friends in MMOs since EQ in 1999 were women. I was involved in Roleplaying though - but even when I veered towards high-end raiding we had multiple women.

When I was in ESO, most of my guild was Women. I founded the guild but a lot of women liked the RP concept and sometimes our guild meetings were 90% women.

[SlickPaws]

*snip*

While I appreciate the logic, I don't think that's what's happened here. MMOs have always been accepting of anyone, and that's probably been to our detriment because it has allowed people from both extremes to creep in and begin infecting communities with extremist rhetoric. Gamers never cared about any of this before, and we ignored it out of tolerance and a love of gaming until the point it has become overbearing - and I will say that much of it is coming from one direction. The vast majority of people subbed to this game right now most likely just looking to play something cool and flashy for a few hours and have some fun with their friends and that's the voice that I'm currently attempting to speak for... We just want to be left alone to play our video games. Not everything has to be politicised, it is okay to want to escape from it all even if it's just for a couple of hours. This is a big reason that there's a resurgence in retro gaming, because games were just better in the past when there weren't overt political themes transplanted directly from real life being shoved down your throat.

[Aword3213]

The kind of people who say this are the kind of people who first took the term, popularised it, used it to death and now complain about its usage when criticised for doing things that once upon a time, you'd have called "woke" unironically. The term originated in American Black culture and referred to someone being racially aware, "awake" to the systemic racial problems... And then it was appropriated by extreme left activists and extended to any sort of awareness of oppression. Being "woke" used to be a good thing for them, it used to be a badge to signal to each other that you're both on the same wavelength. The entire reason the opposition from the centre and from the right uses the term is because the left popularised it, and now you're trying to disavow the term as some right-wing dogwhistle. This is the bed that the left-wing activists made for themselves, and now they don't want to sleep in it.

yeah. Pretty sure "woke" used to be a badge of honor not so long ago. To see how it turned out to be negative in such a short time, no thanks to people under the "woke" banner I guess.

[TKOtheKDR]

I don't get the argument that focusing on a female lead automatically makes a storyline woke.

Are people forgetting that the literal main character, the never losing hero Warrior of Light, can be a woman?

Is the WoL woke?! I don't get it

Being a female has nothing to do with dislike of a main character or anything else in this thread. It's the way that it was carried out in DT. Wuk Lamat was written horribly and is incredibly annoying. There is no character development, and the character succeeds because "she was perfect and powerful all along"--just like Rey from Star Wars and the fictional abomination that is Michael Burnham from Star Trek. Add the friction and weighty real-world biases of the (arguably) "social justice"/"diversity" inspired character design and voice actor casting, and you have a perfect storm of a horrible character and expansion, (as it was based around that character). Again, sex has nothing to do with the dislike of a FF main character--give us a Terra, give us a Quistis, give us a Rikku--damn, even give us a Vanille and we'll be happy.

[SlickPaws]

Again, sex has nothing to do with the dislike of a FF main character--give us a Terra, give us a Quistis, give us a Rikku--damn, even give us a Vanille and we'll be happy.

Man, it hurts me a little bit that you didn't mention Rinoa.

[ZephyrMenodora]

give us a Terra,

Still wish I had $14,000 lying around for this

[Pepperblue]

Being a female has nothing to do with dislike of a main character or anything else in this thread. It's the way that it was carried out in DT. Wuk Lamat was written horribly and is incredibly annoying. There is no character development, and the character succeeds because "she was perfect and powerful all along"--just like Rey from Star Wars and the fictional abomination that is Michael Burnham from Star Trek. Add the friction and weighty real-world biases of the (arguably) "social justice"/"diversity" inspired character design and voice actor casting, and you have a perfect storm of a horrible character and expansion, (as it was based around that character). Again, sex has nothing to do with the dislike of a FF main character--give us a Terra, give us a Quistis, give us a Rikku--damn, even give us a Vanille and we'll be happy.

But isn't the Warrior of Light the literal "chosen one", perfect and powerful from the beginning? Sure, we lose here and there, but in the end the WoL always saves everyone's asses.

If I made the WoL a strong female Roegadyn, how is that not woke by your definition?

Would you be this upset if Wuk Lamat was a dude?