Today's topic is
The Longest Journey and
religion. And I quote (from
this review):
"From a Christian perspective there are a few issues with this game. My biggest complaint is the swearing. This games uses every word in the book, multiple times. I honestly think this game has more swearing than all of my games combined! I wish there was an option to turn that off. There are some drug and sexual references too. For example, your landlord is a lesbian and talks freely about her love life. Your best friend is "easy" and talks about hers too. I guess this is to help your great listening skills? My last area of concern is religion. Every one in the game refers to the balance. They will say things like "By the balance", or "May the balance be with you" etc. The whole belief system seems to be new age sounding. Christianity is mentioned, but only as an inferior religion. There's a priest in the game who plays both sides and mentions that he read the bible but it didn't make sense. Yet the balance was the truth and brought him closer to God. Umm yeah, whatever."Interestingly enough, and quite intentional on my part, the Balance is never presented as a religion. The Balance is more about spiritual mechanics, about how magic and science are, uh,
balanced out. It's about the tools used by divinity, and not divinity in itself. The Balance is a unifying force recognised by, and a part of, all religions, including Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism. It's a force of nature. And at no point in the game is Christianity mentioned as an inferior religion. In fact, the priest referred to above - Father Raul - is a devout Catholic who also happens to be a follower of the Balance, a Sentinel Minstrum. He doesn't "play both sides"; I'd compare it to a minister who's also a scientist. Two perspectives are better than one, especially when one can give you a better insight into another. Finally, the reviewer is wrong: Raul never says that the Bible doesn't make sense. April Ryan, however, makes a joke about the sequel to the Bible - the Bible 2 - and how
that book didn't make much sense. Obviously.
In a way, the above-quoted review is a tragic example of how certain people use religion as an excuse to spread their
bigoted world view. I mean, what do a few curses - a permanent part of our modern vocabulary - and the fact that a couple of the game's characters are gay have to do with religion, or with being "good Christians"? April uses bad language and befriends gays, and yet -
blasphemy! - she still believes in God. And that's wrong...how exactly? Is the reviewer saying that God hates gays, that homosexuality is evil, and no one should ever be exposed to the searing sight of same-sex love? Come to think of it, is Emma (as the reviewer suggests) "easy" because she actually talks openly about her relationships, because she - like most young women - actually have sex with (
gasp!) young men? It's pretty funny that the guy mentions Emma's rather innocent, and certainly harmless, comments, and not Zach's. The latter is a really sleazy
guy who treats women like objects. So it's okay for a guy to talk about sex, but not for a woman? I guess they have to remain mothers and virgins.
I'm being a little confrontational here, but I get sooo fed up with narrow-mindedness. The point of including "adult" language (not very; I'd say kids are as proficient with four-letter words - if not more - as adults are) and homosexual characters in a game is to put a mirror up to real life. Face it, guy, people say "sh*t" and "fu*k" all the time. Get over it. You don't have to speak it, but accept that others do. And there are lots of people who, for very natural reasons, are attracted to members of the same sex. Again, no one's forcing
you to experiment in that direction. Live and let live - if you feel threatened by the presence of gays, maybe there are reasons for that.
Now...how many people did I manage to piss off?
I don't think we did something awfully important or hugely valuable by allowing a few animated characters to use real-life language, or by adding two lesbian characters to our cast. In fact, it's much more important to note that so few games have done this in the first place. Gay characters in computer and video games are usually effiminate men or butch women - cliches, included for "comedy relief", or simple bigotry. Like black characters who aren't sidekicks, or even women who aren't mere sexual objects, games are ridiculously white, straight, and male. Now, I happen to be white, straight,
and male, so I guess I'm the target audience. But I'd actually love to play a black lesbian character, or a Pakistani grandfather, in a role-playing game or adventure - why the hell not? It'd more fun than being Duke Nukem or Lara Croft...all over again.
When the eventual sequel to TLJ is released, expect a whole truckload of women, gays, and multi-hued characters, as well as more four-letter words than you'd find in a high-school lunch-room at noon. We'll put a sticker on the box: "Not for bigots", and still sell a million copies. Why? Because gamers are, in general, a very liberal and intelligent bunch. That's why.
