I don't really like it when people use gendered terms like "man up" or "don't be such a girl". Like, girls can be strong and men can be fragile and there's nothing wrong with that
That's exactly what I was talking about. We're not supposed to like it, quite the opposite, because it's horrid behavior coming from a character that is plain and simple, a bad person.
The problem with sort of stuff is when the work (say, a game, a movie or whatever) puts these "bad" things on a positive light (and usually that has to do more with incompetence on the writing more than outright intent to hurt people), instead of attaching it to an antagonistic character that's shown to be a bad example. Or botching the morals of a story.
Basic writing as I said.
Of course we can also tell a story where a character that starts as a disgusting individual but throughout the story learns and improves. Not a very "dark" example, but the original Ratchet & Clank is about two individuals that don't like each other and act a bit like dicks, but as they work together and get to know each other, they grow and improve.
That's the handy thing with storytelling, you can do many things as long as think responsibly. It's all in the context and the intentions.
But I guess if it's a bad guy and you're supposed to be hate it whatever he says then it's fine. I noticed that using strong curse words like "f*ck" or whatever is really associated more with fan translations and seems to be avoided in official translations unless it's a 16+ game
Oh boy, that's so true, at least with some old day translations. So many swear words thrown around, like in that one Final Fantasy IV fan translation. That one even had Star Trek references out of the blue! I believe that sort of thing was born from the "need" to fight back the usual censorship at the time.
I think today's fan translations are upheld to a much higher regard, though!
Edit:
As a matter of fact, I find what TigerTiger wrote about the stereotypes of women being weak relevant : the main characteristic of Neil is his cowardice, and yet he keeps calling his opponents to "chicks", implying they have, one way or another, what he believes are "feminine traits".
That's a usual key element with this sort of archetype of character, they either project quite a bit, or their hostility is there to shield themselves. Less often is pure madness (like Luca Blight mentioned above).
Last edited by Maeson,