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Laura Kate Dale: "A trans woman discusses SWERY, representation and Deadly Premonition 2" (SPOILERS for DP 1/2, The Missing) [UP: SWERY responds]
- Thread starter MinusTydus
- Start date
I'm glad she points out the quote from SWERY in that MISSING interview about J.J.'s mom. I was also disturbed by it. However, maybe I'm just being naive, but I wonder if there is nuance to it beyond just both sides or he isn't getting his point across because of a translation barrier. Like he is trying to say her views are terrible, but she's been shaped by her views and life experience and isn't inherently a terrible person. I don't know, the story is so trans positive it's hard to believe he'd have such a dumb both sides take. It's also worth pointing out that while she is the villain in the story, once you beat it the extra texts you unlock point to her coming around.
Yikes, the treatment of this character seems worse than I had even thought.
I wish SWERY had consulted trans writers when working on this. It seems gross. Glad they put out that statement saying they're changing it, but it doesn't seem restricted to just one scene.
I wish SWERY had consulted trans writers when working on this. It seems gross. Glad they put out that statement saying they're changing it, but it doesn't seem restricted to just one scene.
Laura pulled a lot of punches in this video, which I can understand given how even bringing up these subjects can turn women into targets for harassment. That said, I believe it's very much fair to accuse SWERY of outright transphobia and bigoted views of trans women specifically considering the content of both Deadly Premonition games and SWERY's comments about MISSING. Calling the situation "a problem" is very much an understatement.
In my opinion, it's not enough for SWERY to just rewrite some parts of DP2 and call it a day. SWERY needs to explicitly state his mistakes. Explicitly state why they are wrong. Explicitly state his understanding of his own errors. To apologize sincerely. And to promise not just to ensure this never happens again in his words, actions, and video games, but also that he'll also personally seek remedy for himself -- through education/counseling/therapy or whathaveyou -- and for those he's harmed.
This is a major fuck up. That SWERY created MISSING does not excuse his words and actions. I hope more people expect more from SWERY as well.
In my opinion, it's not enough for SWERY to just rewrite some parts of DP2 and call it a day. SWERY needs to explicitly state his mistakes. Explicitly state why they are wrong. Explicitly state his understanding of his own errors. To apologize sincerely. And to promise not just to ensure this never happens again in his words, actions, and video games, but also that he'll also personally seek remedy for himself -- through education/counseling/therapy or whathaveyou -- and for those he's harmed.
This is a major fuck up. That SWERY created MISSING does not excuse his words and actions. I hope more people expect more from SWERY as well.
yes and this is adressed in the video
it is also adressed that how the hell will he do this since it is not simple as one or two lines and also a major plot point is super problematic.
Yeah... oooof
Didn't know the issues with transphobia ran that deep in DP2, I knew/remembered about some of the Thomas stuff in DP1, but to see it repeated in the sequel is... I don't even know how to express it...
Also, the stuff that Swery said on those interviews just really piles it on...
I don't think, no matter how much you where to spend, that you could fix the representation problems in DP2.
Didn't know the issues with transphobia ran that deep in DP2, I knew/remembered about some of the Thomas stuff in DP1, but to see it repeated in the sequel is... I don't even know how to express it...
Also, the stuff that Swery said on those interviews just really piles it on...
I don't think, no matter how much you where to spend, that you could fix the representation problems in DP2.
her tweets on the matter were highly illuminating and def had an impact on my decision to not purchase the game for the foreseeable future. coming from how much more genuine and understanding The Missing felt, it's especially hurtful to see such a tremendous leap backwards. going to give this a full watch of course so she can provide more context than the constraints of twitter can eloquently allow.
i'm glad he apologized quickly and has made clear his intent to fix things, but i really don't know why he went ahead with this in the first place.
i'm glad he apologized quickly and has made clear his intent to fix things, but i really don't know why he went ahead with this in the first place.
I'm not sure I'd say Thomas is a trans woman character, and Laura seems unsure herself as well since this hinges on a single interview made 8 years after the game (on a press run for The Missing, with some fictitious condition that may or may not be a translation error, which might make this more a retcon than original intent), but Thomas is at the very least a queer coded one and thus is no less problematic.
I appreciated Laura's tweets on the subject of DP2. I had a preorder ready to go and her and Jim Sterling's voice on the subject led me to cancel, and I'm glad I did. I think Swery is coming from a genuine place based on The Missing and his apology, but ignorance is just as transphobic as malice and that he's harmed the LGBT community twice now is difficult to overlook. Good intentions don't erase that harm.
The transphobic plot points here sound far too intertwined to be resolved with a rewrite of some scenes and some new VO sessions. It's also stunning that nobody on the localization team raised any concerns about this; since Swery actually went to the effort of apologizing and pledging to fix DP2, I'd imagine he also would've been receptive to those concerns being raised during the development process.
I'll continue to wait and see what the changes entail and how trans gamers respond to it, but I'm fully expecting I'll be sitting this game out. Like Laura, I hope that Swery relies on consultants if he continues to use trans characters or simply doesn't include them if he's not.
I appreciated Laura's tweets on the subject of DP2. I had a preorder ready to go and her and Jim Sterling's voice on the subject led me to cancel, and I'm glad I did. I think Swery is coming from a genuine place based on The Missing and his apology, but ignorance is just as transphobic as malice and that he's harmed the LGBT community twice now is difficult to overlook. Good intentions don't erase that harm.
The transphobic plot points here sound far too intertwined to be resolved with a rewrite of some scenes and some new VO sessions. It's also stunning that nobody on the localization team raised any concerns about this; since Swery actually went to the effort of apologizing and pledging to fix DP2, I'd imagine he also would've been receptive to those concerns being raised during the development process.
I'll continue to wait and see what the changes entail and how trans gamers respond to it, but I'm fully expecting I'll be sitting this game out. Like Laura, I hope that Swery relies on consultants if he continues to use trans characters or simply doesn't include them if he's not.
I'm glad I watched this because I had no idea the trans issues in this game ran so deep. It would require an entire rewrite by the looks of things. Like Laura said, SWERY doesn't want us to hate these characters but first impressions are everything and our first impressions towards this game is not pretty.
Absolutely fair criticism. Out of her three suggestions, hopefully we'll end up with the first one, or at least the second one. You could argue that Swery has already had a chance (or perhaps two) to get things right, and that's true, but this is the first time he's been properly criticized and given a kick in the ass to learn and improve.
I was glad when I saw Swery's response, because it seems genuine, indicates that he is wiling to learn, and because it just feels rare to see someone opt to take that path when most people seem to be defensive assholes who double down. I don't sense any malice here at all. Though, especially through the repeated instances of ignorance highlighted in this video, I understand that he's still been hurtful and why people would doubt his ability to break this pattern. But personally I'm giving him this chance.
We'll see how that goes.
I don't know if Deadly Premonition 2 can be wholly fixed, maybe some scenes and lines can be altered, but at least the trope of the character itself is just wholly ingrained. And those who have already played the game, have already had the deadnaming experience. Hard to take that back.
I was glad when I saw Swery's response, because it seems genuine, indicates that he is wiling to learn, and because it just feels rare to see someone opt to take that path when most people seem to be defensive assholes who double down. I don't sense any malice here at all. Though, especially through the repeated instances of ignorance highlighted in this video, I understand that he's still been hurtful and why people would doubt his ability to break this pattern. But personally I'm giving him this chance.
We'll see how that goes.
I don't know if Deadly Premonition 2 can be wholly fixed, maybe some scenes and lines can be altered, but at least the trope of the character itself is just wholly ingrained. And those who have already played the game, have already had the deadnaming experience. Hard to take that back.
I want to believe swery is willing to try, if only because The Missing is nearly a masterwork. But his comments about the mother, who is unambiguously the villain in the game, are pretty shocking.
I dont think it lessens the value of the text of the game. It's still a phenomenally supportive and beautiful narrative. But it does make me cautious about supporting his other work.
I dont think it lessens the value of the text of the game. It's still a phenomenally supportive and beautiful narrative. But it does make me cautious about supporting his other work.
Yeah, so if anyone here *hasn't*, support Laura's book on Unbound. It's already met the publication goal, but that's no reason not to buy what sounds like a great book, from a great writer.
unbound.com
Gender Euphoria: Stories of joy from trans, non-binary and intersex writers by Laura Kate Dale — Unbound
Unbound is a crowdfunding publisher that gives people the tools, support and freedom to bring their ideas to life.
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That is quite bad. However FWIW later in that twitter thread when he's called out for using the word propaganda he says he doesn't know what else to say because his english is poor.
It seems pretty clear he either doesn't understand why there's a problem with York misgendering someone about their past. Or if he gets it he cannot communicate his thoughts on it well. This is definitely a discussion that should not be handled on twitter and by someone who's English is poor.
Feels like there's a language barrier among other things here. That of course doesn't excuse the problematic elements that exist because of that & im glad Swery has made apologies and promises to update. Hopefully him & his team can continue to grow. As there are moments in the game with good messages.
SWERY responds to Laura Kate Dale via Twitter
OP
OP
So, SWERY has responded and, uh... it wasn't a great response.
Here's SWERY's response-- do keep in mind this is his SECOND version of the tweet, he deleted the first version that accused Laura of spreading "her propaganda."
And Laura's response to his response:
Everything about his response is just... oof. From the cringe-yourself-to-hell "my videogames are MAH CHILDREN" to the handwavy "well, that's just your opinion" garbage, I won't be buying this game (I did buy DP1 on PS3, was holding off on the Switch port because I hear it performs like ass) or anything SWERY-related for the foreseeable future. You can only go to the "oops, my poor English" well, so many times. If it's actually that bad, he probably shouldn't be posting to Twitter in English, then.
Laura Kate Dale said:
Laura Kate Dale said:
Laura Kate Dale said:
Here's SWERY's response-- do keep in mind this is his SECOND version of the tweet, he deleted the first version that accused Laura of spreading "her propaganda."
And Laura's response to his response:
Laura Kate Dale said:
Everything about his response is just... oof. From the cringe-yourself-to-hell "my videogames are MAH CHILDREN" to the handwavy "well, that's just your opinion" garbage, I won't be buying this game (I did buy DP1 on PS3, was holding off on the Switch port because I hear it performs like ass) or anything SWERY-related for the foreseeable future. You can only go to the "oops, my poor English" well, so many times. If it's actually that bad, he probably shouldn't be posting to Twitter in English, then.
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i think what swery wanted to say is that not all characters in the game are good people. some are written to be pos assholes. so he doesn't think he should change those like he [tried to] change york.
spoilers for the game:
lena's father for example, is clearly transphobic and pretty much threw her out of the house because of her being trans. so it's not surprising that he later misgenders and is transphobic towards her daughter in that moment.
york on the other hand, while not handled perfectly, is clearly intended to be a positive character and at two points explicitly defends lena when other characters are being bigoted towards her. unfortunately, prior to the patch in some instances york gets it wrong as well but considering swery's apology and his attempt at fixing it, i think it's safe to say he views york as a good character who shouldn't make remarks that come off as transphobic.
the issue is (and i find this quite disappointing), swery shouldn't have created a trans villain after he did it in the first game as well. as a result of this decision there's a lot of moments in the game that make me cringe because he's not able to handle the subject matter in a good way.
unfortunately, other than a complete rewriting of the script i don't think there's really a way to completely fix this. he can't make lena not be the antagonist, and her past and her transition are integral to the story. re-casting the character to be played by a transwoman would be a good step, tho i don't expect it to happen. the instances of deadnaming and misgendering coming from lena's father, the villain of the game, i don't think they're going to be fixed. however, some other instances coming from york in his investigation board/etc should still be fixed.
unfortunately, i think the language barrier with swery is still there and he doesn't have the right consultants to help him understand why some things need to be fixed, even if his intent isn't to be malicious. he probably shouldn't tweet in english as much as he does, or he needs a translator to help him.
spoilers for the game:
lena's father for example, is clearly transphobic and pretty much threw her out of the house because of her being trans. so it's not surprising that he later misgenders and is transphobic towards her daughter in that moment.
york on the other hand, while not handled perfectly, is clearly intended to be a positive character and at two points explicitly defends lena when other characters are being bigoted towards her. unfortunately, prior to the patch in some instances york gets it wrong as well but considering swery's apology and his attempt at fixing it, i think it's safe to say he views york as a good character who shouldn't make remarks that come off as transphobic.
the issue is (and i find this quite disappointing), swery shouldn't have created a trans villain after he did it in the first game as well. as a result of this decision there's a lot of moments in the game that make me cringe because he's not able to handle the subject matter in a good way.
unfortunately, other than a complete rewriting of the script i don't think there's really a way to completely fix this. he can't make lena not be the antagonist, and her past and her transition are integral to the story. re-casting the character to be played by a transwoman would be a good step, tho i don't expect it to happen. the instances of deadnaming and misgendering coming from lena's father, the villain of the game, i don't think they're going to be fixed. however, some other instances coming from york in his investigation board/etc should still be fixed.
unfortunately, i think the language barrier with swery is still there and he doesn't have the right consultants to help him understand why some things need to be fixed, even if his intent isn't to be malicious. he probably shouldn't tweet in english as much as he does, or he needs a translator to help him.
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The response was okay until the last sentence which just reads as full-on transphobia. Don't think I'll be buying this now.
Having this conversation on twitter when there is a clear language barrier doesnt seem productive to me. He needs to own up to the problems in the writing but I think it needs to be explained in his native language otherwise the nuances of this conversation will be lost on him. He should have researched the topic better for sure before writing a trans character.
He really should have someone handle his English language tweets if he's not a confident speaker because I get the feeling that Swery didnt understand the definition of propoganda versus opinion. That he corrected it says someone clued him into it otherwise he wouldn't have bothered to apologise and retweet.
his localised view of things might not realise how writing for LGBTQ+ characters are portrayed in western society versus in Japan, but he's definitely getting an education here. His publisher should be stepping up to help with that
his localised view of things might not realise how writing for LGBTQ+ characters are portrayed in western society versus in Japan, but he's definitely getting an education here. His publisher should be stepping up to help with that
I fear that some will just put the blinkers on and mark this down as simply his "poor English" when expressing himself. I don't think he's a bad person or anything and I really respect him being so quick to want to fix the issues, but this response is just... ugh...
That's unfortunate, i had higher expectations of him. Of course in the back of my mind i want to believe that hes not like this about it and make translation excuses, and compared to the bozos at atlus hes a saint. But any transphobia is too much transphobia and this is unacceptable
Much like how he needed to vet his work through trans people, he really needs to vet his tweets through somebody who speaks english because jesus fucking christ.
Ignoring the obvious language barrier issues, the line about her opinion makes me worry. It sounds like he's deflecting criticism which I have seen too many times from people who don't actually know what they did wrong. I really, really hope that's not the case but I can't continue to be a fan of somebody who refuses to grow.
Ignoring the obvious language barrier issues, the line about her opinion makes me worry. It sounds like he's deflecting criticism which I have seen too many times from people who don't actually know what they did wrong. I really, really hope that's not the case but I can't continue to be a fan of somebody who refuses to grow.
This pretty much sums up my thoughts and feelings. As someone who has family in Japan, I can see him being quite naive and uninformed but considering he is writing a story based in the west, he really needs to educate himself on the matter.
well said, i feel pretty much the same. regardless of the language barrier this has been a good opportunity for him to learn things so i don't think i can call myself a swery fan if this keeps happening in future games.
ughhdfkdofusfdios i was wrong to get my hopes up after his apology and promise to fix things in DP2
Yeah, there's obviously some language barrier issues, but that also seems to be paired with a doubling down on his characters being his characters, so leave them alone... It's why I got so bothered by the extremely overt amount of praise he was getting in the initial thread, as clearly removing a single line of dialogue isn't fixing anything.
I do still genuinely believe he means well, to some degree, but I don't think he really understands the issues fully and I guess that's exasperated by the cultural issues/language barriers.
I only hope he tries to understand further and not just abandon that since they're his "children" - Outlook? Not good
Wow. I'm so disappointed in his tweet response. Yes, language is an issue but it's pretty clear what he thinks when he refers to his game as his children, UGH
Assuming a large part of it is a language barrier/misunderstanding from his part, it's bizarre that this kind of stuff got past localization and voice recording. Given his initial response to this, I have to imagine he would appreciate the translators correcting this mistake and informing him.
I don't even mean trying to "fix it by themselves" like the Catherine Full Body localization team tried to do, I mean actually bringing this up for him to consider and agree with the changes. York going on speeches about acceptance should be enough clue of the creator's intent here.
I don't even mean trying to "fix it by themselves" like the Catherine Full Body localization team tried to do, I mean actually bringing this up for him to consider and agree with the changes. York going on speeches about acceptance should be enough clue of the creator's intent here.
That's a horrible response even with the correction. I liked Swery games in the past and forgave him because after The Missing it seemed like his writing was going in the right direction, but after seeing the pre-release warnings and what's in the game I'm glad I didn't spend money to support this.
I guess the result speaks for itself.
What I find bizarre is that with The Missing he actually consulted with trans voices to have appropriate representation on that game. Did he actually thought "I got this now I can write this on my own" with DP2.
I guess the result speaks for itself.