Dragon Rape III

In an interesting post on his tumblr, David Gaiter, a lead writer at Bioware, discussed the female perspective his writing team enjoys during their peer-review process.

We were sitting down to peer review a plot— a peer review being the point where a plot has had its first writing pass completed, and whoever wrote it sits down with the other writers as well as representatives from cinematic design, editing, and level art to hear critique. We’ve all read it first, and written down our thoughts, and go around the table to relate any issues we encountered. 

As it happened, most of the guys went first. Typical stuff— some stuff was good, some stuff needed work, etc. etc. Then one of the female writers went, and she brought up an issue. A big issue. It had to do with a sexual situation in the plot, which she explained could easily be interpreted as a form of rape. 

It wasn’t intended that way. In fact, the writer of the plot was mortified. The intention was that it come across as creepy and subverting… but authorial intention is often irrelevant, and we must always consider how what we write will be interpreted. In this case, it was not a long trip for the person playing through the plot to see what was happening at a slightly different angle, and it was no longer good-creepy. It was bad-creepy. It was discomforting and not cool at all. And this female writer was not alone. All the other women at the table nodded their heads, and had noted the same thing in their critiques. So we discussed it, changes were made, and everything was better. Crisis averted.

Now this isn't an indictment of Bioware or Gaiter, but I'm curious what others think about this.

The topic of presenting compelling and credible stories to audiences in video games is one that absolutely fascinates me. In my view, the world is often cruel, racist, sexist, homophobic, and harsh. I do not think it necessarily makes one sexist or racist to accurately portray the prevailing attitudes of a flawed society; in fact, I think that adds to the suspension of disbelief, because if anything, offering a politically-correct and sanitized imitation would just feel artificial. And in sensitively and maturely showing the human costs and injustices cultivated by corrupt social institutions, the power of whatever point you are trying to make is enhanced greatly.

Again, I don't think we can reasonably accuse the Bioware writers for being guilty of this based on Gaiter's blog post. In fact, it could very well be a good thing -- I do not know. However, I do fear that such a writing-by-committee design may leave a sterile, incredible, and generic narrative.