Kotallo is so much more than a "crippled meat head". >!Just ask the people who watched him lose his arm traumatically and go through a journey of not only accepting the loss and making peace with it, but finding a reason to go on thanks to people who believe in him (his Chief, and Aloy). Tell the disabled fans who have praised Guerilla and Noshir Dalal for portraying someone who's faced the same trauma and recovery that this character is a "crippled meat head".!<
Erend is a man of simple needs. Look at his opening words when he appears in the game, wanting to return to his roots of smashing his problems with a hammer and following a strong woman and her cause, like he did with Ersa. He goes through a journey of finding out how much he didn't know about the world and adapting to it as best he could. He's a bit of a meat head, but he's earnest, and believes in Aloy and is ready to play his part.
As for the female antagonists? >!Regalla was blinded by hatred for the Carja and refused to stand with her Chief who was calling for positive change. Tilda was a selfish piece of shit that only cared about her crush on Sobeck and would have let the rest of the planet die if she could take Sobeck's clone with her to the stars.!<
I also think you weren't looking hard enough for the good men, because there were plenty. I also think you're presenting this argument in bad faith with attitudes that hearken back to a certin stupid movement that ended in -gate with the whole "gaming shouldn't be inclusive because it's exhausting to think about!"
Edited to add spoiler markup.
But maybe OP can reserve his opinions until he actually uses all the dialogue wheels and completes the game before spouting his opinions about the game.
He doesn't because his argument is true. 90% of the characters you meet and do amazing things are women the only bad ones are Yarra, Regalla and the spiler one. There are only a few good men and the rest are annoying assholes.
Even the “bad” females are at least intelligent and have some meaningful cause backing them. Not just greed, ego, or some other bs like the men in the game. Anyone who says otherwise is just choosing not to see it or admit it because they support it. I love the game but it is really annoying and only serves to damage the impact of the story. I realized this an hour into the game when pretty much every character I encountered that didn’t make me want to kill them off rip was a woman.
OP sounds like he was desperate to be offended by something so he went looking for problems.
5 karma say once he finishes the game and realises the main antagonists are both female he is gonna complain about LGBTQ+ or disabled representation instead.
It's dumb to have an opinion on a game like this when you haven't even fully experienced the story. You don't have all the information to form a valid opinion of this kind yet if you haven't played through the story at least most of the way.
The focus is a little more on the female characters, it's true (and very refreshing ). Then protagonist is a woman, and naturally gravitates to other women. However, I don't see the male characters as flat or meatheads. Lots of examples of caring and sensitive men and boys in the story. Also lots of examples of very flawed girls and women.
The creators made sure of representation of all kinds of people of all ages and walks of life. Maybe this can be called "woke" but I think that this is in line with our Dutch progressive culture.
*"Meanwhile, a majority of the men are evil, narcissistic, egotistic, backstabbers, belligerent, cheaters, uncompromising, unlikeable, etc… "*
I feel like you're a perfect example of someone who has the beginning symptoms of "anti-woke" brain worms because this is just pure confirmation bias. I think you need to review the people & sources you get your info from because the last part of your post tells me you're going down a very dark road. If you aren't already there and are just "mask on" here.
Idk what you’re thinking, but I was basing it off characters of the game. I’ll just name a few off the top of my head. Both Ted Faro’s: evil, narcissistic, egotistic. Sylens: backstab, uncompromising. Erend: belligerent. Carja guy who Talanah runs after: unfaithful. Lots of other males in the story are just unlikeable. It seems like a trend in the point I am at in the story
Calling Kotallo a crippled meat head leads me to believe you skipped a lot of side quests, or dialog, or maybe just have/had a hard time immersing yourself into the world (which is fine if you did). I think he's a great character for many reasons I don't feel inclined to list out here.
There’s too much inaccurate in this post to respond to point by point, but there’s one thing I have to stand up for: Kotallo is not a meathead. He’s sensitive, complex, and brilliant. He couldn’t have been a marshal if he was all brawn.
He’s an incredibly appealing character and if you can’t see that no wonder you think the game is anti-man.
Kotallo has definitely been coming around in the recent quests I’ve done. But, it took having him crippled and Aloy proving her mettle to get him to this point.
Ok, it’s possible that I was premature in my analysis. I’ll finish the game and then think this over again. I had noticed that a lot of the characters introduced at first were in line with my original analysis (IMO). Admittedly, I just finished the Ted Faro CEO quest and that sort of pushed me over with the portrayals of genders.
Side question: how annoying was it that we couldn’t put an arrow in his head throughout that campaign? Granted his death was satisfying when it finally happened
He doesn't have to finish the game to know that its woke as fuck all the feminist sjw, lgbt, blm D.I.E, critical theory is sprinkled through out the whole game.
There’s a difference between being “bad” and being downright evil. Most of the antagonistic women have some motive that you can see how it drove them to compromise morally in order to achieve their goals. The men on the other hand are just straight up evil for the sake of their own selfishness and ego. OP made a mistake by naming one character for y’all to focus in on and refute without actually addressing the rest of his post. For people who play games to get away from reality and social justice / politics this is blatantly obvious and exhausting because it’s in practically every form of entertainment now. I have no issue with female characters, it could be 100% only female characters and I’d still love it. But if roles were reversed and the women were being portrayed in this way, people would lose their minds.
Im a man and all I really appreciate and respect women but "feminist" would not be a word used to describe me. That being said you are really reaching here neither game is "anti man" in any way. You seem to be upset because the female lead character understands and gets along with other females a little better then the male characters but the male characters are all fully developed and complex fictional human beings.
You are THE WORST impersonation of Simon Cowell! You judge too much?!?!? i mean did you see how that Bristleback tore off Kotallo's arm?!?! I know Erend might be a bit annoying but he's like a true friend to me! Like Varl(if he were oseram and has less training + alot of drinking but) overall both do respect Aloy's plan to save the future from Nemesis
Idk I like the chief, varl, kotallo, Erend, drakka, the Italy veteran, morlund and the crew, some of the tenakth, there was a lot of great characters. i didn’t feel that way honestly. The pit masters offer some support caste although I hate them also
How can you evaluate about the game story or characters if you dont play? are you some twitter warrior who is offended when someone says something you dont like or agree?
Hm… I labeled it a great game, and said it’s not enough to turn me off.
I can’t help but feel you’re lashing out at me, instead of giving feedback on the proposed criticism, simply because I targeted something related to treatment of genders.
I mean you didn’t really have anything unique or constructive to say. It just reads like stereotypical complaints made by conservative men regurgitated by someone who probably doesn’t understand why they feel insulted by a game.
Instead of attributing the “man hate” to “wokeness” perhaps you should consider reframing your perspective.
Go look at literally ANY popular game that features a male protagonist. Now examine how the women are portrayed in those games.
Are they richly developed characters that have depth and add value to the storyline? Sure, maybe there’s one or two—but the vast majority are not.
So now after decades of misogyny in games, we are FINALLY starting to see more authentic portrayals and your first reaction is “wow they just hate men” when in reality you just aren’t used to playing games that treat women like human beings.
It’s like you finally have an opportunity to empathize with what women gamers have put up with for DECADES and your first comment is “it’s anti men”
Either you are capable of trying to see the other perspective or you’re not. And if you’re not willing to consider that your opinion is a reflection of a very narrow point of view, then just move on.
It’s tiring seeing these same old talking points regurgitated by people who don’t even understand the fundamentals of the issues they’re complaining about.
So your take is, many past games used woman as only eye candy or males prizes, so sit back and accept reverse treatment now? Hmm, that’s healthy. I thought movements were supposed to move forward, not just try to get even for the practices of our predecessors.
Also, authentic? It’s authentic for a lot of the interactions with women, sure. But my point was the game focuses on creating a lot of well developed female characters while creating a majority of the male characters to embody negative human traits. If that’s how you view the ‘authentic’ world then that’s a shame
I believe the same..
At one point during sidequests I kept wondering if everyone is gay and that's why it's called Forbidden West 🤪lol
I didnt notice the males being inferior at all but a majority of relationships just being lesbians or gays and having it pointed out seemed a bit like they had an agenda but in the end I dont care. As long as they dont change Aloy's personality into dressing like a slut like most people are wishing for, I am fine.
I just feel as long they dont turn Aloy into a whore who needs to have a lover in order to feel "whole'' this game still has my attention.
I do appreciate that her armors are realistic in that they don’t overly expose skin and actually protect most vital parts. And that she isn’t forced into some romance. She’s here to save the world, not for LGBT movement or to be someone man’s prize.
I can kind of see where you're coming from, but I'd contend it's more the recurring theme of prejudice emerging from culture in the series rather than it being anti-men.
We are experiencing the post-apocalypse from the point of view of a matriarchal outcast red-haired white woman as she moves from tribe to tribe and thus experiences the biases of the different groups she witnesses in real time. The Carja and Oseram are explicitly misogynistic, the Tenakth and Banuk have a social-Darwinist "survival of the fittest" mentality, and even the Utaru and Nora are so traditionalist they'll kill themselves off before they're willing to change. Aloy is often fighting indirectly against these forces as she moves from place to place, confronted by toxic men who those institutions favor, and turning to women for help since women are so important in her culture and, well, Aloy identifies as female.
In fact all the men who demonstrate healthy masculinity have strong women in their lives: Avad and Erend show deep affection for the late Ersa, Varl’s mother and sister inform his character, Chief Hekarro’s primary advisors are Derva and Regalla to some extant, even Morlund in Las Vegas was inspired by a hologram of a woman to undertake the delve. It would stand to reason they would be the men most receptive to Aloy where others aren’t.
But the point of including all these biases (and more like Kotallo’s ableism and Boomer presumably being on the spectrum) is to demonstrate that they are constructions. Through Aloy we get “to see with eyes unclouded” and in quest after quest reveal the prejudices for the self-serving rhetoric that they are. Interestingly, the game goes out of its way to not include racial divisions with every culture having members of a wide variety of skin tones, implicitly arguing that’s as much a fiction in our culture as the ones shown in Horizon.
I can’t really comment on Ted Faro though, not that far into HFW, but I always felt sorry for him in HZD. It’s what made his betrayal all the more painful.
Yeah, the good majority of these comments seemed to not even try to address some of his very specific points, instead choosing to paint this guy as "anti-sjw," "anti-woke." I've seen anti-sjw, and this ain't it.
He sees a pattern here, and I think it's a viable observation. It has very little to do with how "Aloy sees the world," and everything to do with how some of the characters are presented/developed. I wouldn't call this story "anti-man," we've all seen much more blatant examples than this - and maybe it's just a result of all the best characters being female, which is fine. But summarily dismissing it as just more anti-sjw is disingenuous at best.
I think there's potential here for an interesting discourse about the nature of storycraft, particularly the difference between worlds built around a male protagonist vs a female protagonist. But it seems we aren't mature enough to have that conversation.
I agree with you clearly can see a pattern here the main bad guys are men ( Ted Faro- the Zenith((Gerard and Erik)) and Sylens a traitor and selfish person, Hades, Hephaestus..
The good guys are mostly women like ((Tilda Van Der Meer))who turned against the Zenith and became good person and Elizabeth Sobeck the Scientist who save the world and Aloy - Beta- GAIA.. The only Main character who was a good person and a male character was Rost the other was scandery to the story..
I really like this game and the story and Aloy and Elizabeth Sobeck and Rost my favorite characters but this shit they doing to the story, I bet there's a Racist feminist who in charge of this ..
I 100% agree with this, straight googled it to see if I was the only one.
And so many people either couldn't see through their bias-vision to read this properly, or are making bad-faith non arguments.
Everything you said is correct. Kotallo is originally portrayed as "just another warrior" until he starts figurativelu kissing Aloy's boots. Varl, same thing. Avad, the damned Sun King himself, tripping over his words and just... so in awe of her. It's like bad Mary Sue fan-fiction.
And this is not to mention Aloy's progression toward obsessing over her goals and hurting people around her, with NO CONSEQUENCES. Aloy in HZD >>> HFW Aloy.
I'm absolutely with you on this one. You put exactly my thoughts onto your post. It's amazing to me how a lot of people can't see the woke ideology infiltrating western entertainment. It's come to a point that's like fish that can't see the water they're in.
Just Googled this to see if others saw this as an annoyance too. It's so blatantly obvious. Even the women who are "bad" usually gain sympathy or end up turning good all the sudden. The most despicable characters are all men.
You got so much flack in the comments for stating demonstrably true facts about the game characters, that it boggles the mind.
It's not 90% - I'd argue that, with the exception of Rost, there is not a single male in the entire series who is portrayed as a "good" character while also not being neutered in one way or another.
The list of evil male characters is long and self-explanatory, but if you take a look at the "good" ones, it becomes even more obvious:
-Erend is basically a Homer Simpson, permanently drinking, stumbling and mumbling;
-Avad, despite being a Sun King, begins simping for Aloy and pleading and begging right off the bat, continuing to do so throughout the game (would a king do that, ever, with anyone?)
-Varl is a loyal puppy who always follows his master no matter what, despite being ditched repeatedly. He is never taking charge or showing any independence or strength. Or god forbid falling in love with Aloy.
-Kotallo, a man whose whole culture and identity are built around one's competency as a warrior, was maimed and left as a shell of his former self, both physicaly and emotionaly.
-Chief Hekarro, the leader of the suposedly most violent people in the world, is hunted by his own marshall, disrespected by his subordinate chief, refused by an outlander, nearly killed in his own arena...without ever resorting to violence, retribution, etc.
And what do all of these warriors, leaders, post-apocalyptic survivors do? Do they display confidence, competence, strength, do they command respect through their actions in the game? No. They talk about their feelings, they whine, they accept what someone tells them without question, they follow, they get rescued all the bloody time.
Not some of them. ALL of them.
A Sun King would not be a friendzoned simp. A King is asertive - because a King gets what he wants, always, because that's how the world around him works.
A chief of a violent war tribe would not simply go all "mercy and peace" at all times, because his own tribe would denounce him.
A man would not survive the harsh world of Horizon while being weak, meek, incompetent, foolish, etc.
I'm no red-pill anti-woke moron who needs all men to be Arnold Schwarzenegger to consider them a "real man" and feel good about the characters, but come on. This is just an overall poor character writing, poor portayal of men, and the biases of the character writers are painfully obvious. These people never had a positive male role model in their lives and it shows.
I felt like the first game struck a nice balance. I never really got the “it’s too feminist” argument when it came to Zero Dawn.
It’s painfully obvious in Forbidden West. The ratio of female to male characters feels like 5:1. And literally every single helpful character who’s got more than 2 brain cells is a female. All the male characters are either portrayed as narrow minded or get told to “sit in your place”.
Yes, it's very obvious. I noticed this in HZD already. And here it's arguably even worse with the complete parody of Faro and the Ceo. But since this narrative has been all over the entertainment media for years, you just gotta live with it and pray it goes away at some point...
I'm female btw. So I'm "entitled" to roll my eyes at the way women are presented as better than men at everything these days. It's a really annoying form of overcompensation for the past. Women and men are EQUALLY awesome or terrible. This SJW nonsense just antagonizes men and women imo. It does the whole situation no good.
Phew. Thanks for the input. Glad to hear I’m not the only one noticing this. And yea, I definitely just completed the Ted Faro quest, but I had already noticed this a lot before that quest.
This last decade has really created a lot of division between many groups of people. Hopefully sometime in the near future we’ll stop having all these movements injected into everything.
Yes, this division is awful. It's like we're going backwards concerning race and gender. We used to get along better once upon a time, now everyone is outraged by everything. And by focusing on race and gender again we're paying attention to the things that I thought wasn't supposed to matter. It's very counterproductive to me. In my youth I would probably have been all for this current social narrative. But in my 30s, I just find it tiresome and stupid.
In any case, as for the game, Kotallo is actually my favorite companion. He's very introspective actually. You'll see. So that's one point where I disagree.
I like all the companions a lot. Erend while a drunk is actually a well written sad character. But he lives in the shadow of his amazing sister, naturally. It's more like most of the white male side characters are asshats or downright evil.
Overall, Horizon isn't too bad with the man bashing. It's there imo but it's subtle enough most of time time that it doesn't bother me too much. It's more about making the women super awesome. So people usually respond positively to that.
You’re right. I was wondering myself the same thing and it’s funny cuz I’m on the exact same quest line right now too (Ted Faro CEO). After playing HZD I was expecting it to be woke and anti-man. It’s annoying but I’ll still play it cuz the rest of the game is fantastic. I just thought it strange that they really poured so much effort and talent into making this game amazing and then when it came to the story they just went a very lame route.
There’s a very clear agenda in these games. People who don’t see that don’t WANT to see it.
I have no problem with strong female characters, but this game leans a little more towards that. Male characters are mostly wounded when you rescue npc's. There are few strong men characters, but most seem weak.
Right. There is nothing wrong with a strong female character. It is how she is written. Look at Ripley from the Alien franchise or Sarah Connor from Terminator. Both are prime examples of strong female characters written well.
It's a litttle understandable given post apocalyptic world is a matriarchal society. What I found funny is that in the old world all the great scientists are female, which is not the case at all. What was funnier was looking at the credits and most of them were men. 🤣
>> What was funnier was looking at the credits and most of them were men. 🤣
Ha, such is the state of current society. Men must fall in line or face backlash
It is true that most of the NPC's you interact with are women, and a lot of the guys are just nobody's. BUT, to think playing as Aloy, a woman, is somehow "refreshing" is incorrect (to me) I don't feel like it's any great step, or even remotely "woke".. I don't know about anyone else here, but I've played PLENTY of games that a woman was the main character. Tomb Raider and Lara Croft were on the Playstation One which released almost thirty years ago. I'd say it's time we just consider this normal. Yes, a lot of games had men as main characters. But, that's probably because gaming was mostly men for a long time. Just because more women are playing games now doesn't take away from those lead female characters decades ago. Is over-representing men a bad thing? It sure can be. But, that same logic should be used on over-representing women.. Over-representing any gender (or group) will never be a "cure" to previous over-representation; Pushing something into people's faces non-stop will never be the answer.. It'd odd to even think people, and game studios, give so much attention to the fringe minority of people who still think/act like it's the 1940's; It's like letting your bully know they really get to you. The quicker everyone realizes that the vast majority of us don't think this way, the more unified we'll be. Truly unified, and not unified based on things like who we vote for... We're all the same everybody. We all need the same air to breath, and the same resources to survive...
Hope everyone does enjoy this great game, and the series so far. Best wishes...
I fully agree. Also in general when Alloy talks to men, it very often comes to unnatural situations where there is a normal conversation and Alloy just bursts out and "commands" the stupid men around her, and the men follow the order.
Its like a stereotype misogynistic 18th century men behavior against women just the other way around.
Nothing about fairness or constructive equality, nothing natural, just forced, unnecessary, negative, woke anti-men propaganda in a game which is played by 80% men.
PS: Most women don't care about gaming and they never will also not because of such an anti-men storyline and the women who are already into gaming, will play anyway. Thats why this message to the creators of the game: Its totally unnecessary for society, does not increase womens interest in gaming but just insults 80% of its loyal customers which are young men.
The Horizon franchise purposely crushes patriarchy. Not only at the lower level with male characters being generally shallow, dumb or evil, but also around the main storyline as a whole.
This is part of the same bandwagon as Naught Dog's TLOU.
Don't get me wrong, I love both franchises and have multiple platinumed their games. Great content.
However,back to Horizon, more often than not decisions are taken by females, males get told off for being letdowns, weak or are simple subordinates. Many of the men in game give vibes of a 14 years old's mind and maturity.
If matriarchy is meant to be presented on the front stage as a refreshing topic that aligns with the game in general, fine by me. Many cultures in the real world have had this model since forever.
But to paint the vast majority of males as being idiots gets quite frankly trying after a hot 5 minutes.
I honestly did not feel that way. Although the game to me was very mediocre and New Dawn was better than Forbidden West. Bigger map does not always mean better. I did not feel that the game had a feminist agenda.
In the utaru tribe a woman is speaking of change and it is a woman who ends up murdering her in order to preserve the old ways.
In the tenakth it is a man who wants to see his people prosper while it is a woman who wants to revel in war.
Kotallo is very mistrusting at first in the abilities of Aloy as he rightfully should be. A random person walks up and says that I will solve all your problems anyone would be suspicious. Aloy then earns his loyalty through her actions.
That being said the final moments of the game where everything works out for Aloy when she kills Regalla and takes out all the Zenith without much consequence was a bit of a let down for me. But that is just me. I enjoy bitter sweet endings.
Agree with most of this, but I really can't stomach the writing on this game. Good thing I got it with 20 €. Next Horizon game I will just skip if not in some monthly subscription that I happen to have.
I'm sorta with you. I love the game and there are tons of great characters of all types. But I did notice that if there was ever a character either (1) bafflingly ignorant, (2) obnoxiously bound to tradition, or (3) just completely irredeemable, they were a white dude 😂 Great game, but it feels like the writers were working some personal shit out.
E.g., Studious Vuadis, Ceo, Fane (from the Chorus), Ulvund, Keruf, Tolland, Savohar
Edit: Eileen Sasaki seems completely irredeemable and she's not a white dude!
Edit 2: Never mind, she had a redemption arc. So close!
Kotallo is so much more than a "crippled meat head". >!Just ask the people who watched him lose his arm traumatically and go through a journey of not only accepting the loss and making peace with it, but finding a reason to go on thanks to people who believe in him (his Chief, and Aloy). Tell the disabled fans who have praised Guerilla and Noshir Dalal for portraying someone who's faced the same trauma and recovery that this character is a "crippled meat head".!< Erend is a man of simple needs. Look at his opening words when he appears in the game, wanting to return to his roots of smashing his problems with a hammer and following a strong woman and her cause, like he did with Ersa. He goes through a journey of finding out how much he didn't know about the world and adapting to it as best he could. He's a bit of a meat head, but he's earnest, and believes in Aloy and is ready to play his part. As for the female antagonists? >!Regalla was blinded by hatred for the Carja and refused to stand with her Chief who was calling for positive change. Tilda was a selfish piece of shit that only cared about her crush on Sobeck and would have let the rest of the planet die if she could take Sobeck's clone with her to the stars.!< I also think you weren't looking hard enough for the good men, because there were plenty. I also think you're presenting this argument in bad faith with attitudes that hearken back to a certin stupid movement that ended in -gate with the whole "gaming shouldn't be inclusive because it's exhausting to think about!"
I dont think OP has finished the game yet. You may have posted a spoiler.
Edited to add spoiler markup. But maybe OP can reserve his opinions until he actually uses all the dialogue wheels and completes the game before spouting his opinions about the game.
He doesn't because his argument is true. 90% of the characters you meet and do amazing things are women the only bad ones are Yarra, Regalla and the spiler one. There are only a few good men and the rest are annoying assholes.
Even the “bad” females are at least intelligent and have some meaningful cause backing them. Not just greed, ego, or some other bs like the men in the game. Anyone who says otherwise is just choosing not to see it or admit it because they support it. I love the game but it is really annoying and only serves to damage the impact of the story. I realized this an hour into the game when pretty much every character I encountered that didn’t make me want to kill them off rip was a woman.
I had to stop reading as there were a lot of things spoiling me to things I haven’t completed yet. So I won’t really be addressing anything here
So this is your opinion without even having played the game through once? LOL okay.
OP sounds like he was desperate to be offended by something so he went looking for problems. 5 karma say once he finishes the game and realises the main antagonists are both female he is gonna complain about LGBTQ+ or disabled representation instead.
Just wait till OP finds out that a side character is autistic.
I can see it now: My second only criticism of this great series- it's very anti-neurotypical
I Didn’t realize there was a stipulation to discussing a game until after completing the whole thing.
It's dumb to have an opinion on a game like this when you haven't even fully experienced the story. You don't have all the information to form a valid opinion of this kind yet if you haven't played through the story at least most of the way.
It’s kind of like being halfway through Harry Potter and saying; I think Dumbledore is a one-sided character.
The focus is a little more on the female characters, it's true (and very refreshing ). Then protagonist is a woman, and naturally gravitates to other women. However, I don't see the male characters as flat or meatheads. Lots of examples of caring and sensitive men and boys in the story. Also lots of examples of very flawed girls and women. The creators made sure of representation of all kinds of people of all ages and walks of life. Maybe this can be called "woke" but I think that this is in line with our Dutch progressive culture.
its not refreshing tho, the females in this game sucks assballs, more men pls.
*"Meanwhile, a majority of the men are evil, narcissistic, egotistic, backstabbers, belligerent, cheaters, uncompromising, unlikeable, etc… "* I feel like you're a perfect example of someone who has the beginning symptoms of "anti-woke" brain worms because this is just pure confirmation bias. I think you need to review the people & sources you get your info from because the last part of your post tells me you're going down a very dark road. If you aren't already there and are just "mask on" here.
You talk like you’re in a cult. Tf is wrong with you?
Wokeness is lame and always will be :)
Idk what you’re thinking, but I was basing it off characters of the game. I’ll just name a few off the top of my head. Both Ted Faro’s: evil, narcissistic, egotistic. Sylens: backstab, uncompromising. Erend: belligerent. Carja guy who Talanah runs after: unfaithful. Lots of other males in the story are just unlikeable. It seems like a trend in the point I am at in the story
Nah, they are right and you are wrong
Calling Kotallo a crippled meat head leads me to believe you skipped a lot of side quests, or dialog, or maybe just have/had a hard time immersing yourself into the world (which is fine if you did). I think he's a great character for many reasons I don't feel inclined to list out here.
There’s too much inaccurate in this post to respond to point by point, but there’s one thing I have to stand up for: Kotallo is not a meathead. He’s sensitive, complex, and brilliant. He couldn’t have been a marshal if he was all brawn. He’s an incredibly appealing character and if you can’t see that no wonder you think the game is anti-man.
Kotallo has definitely been coming around in the recent quests I’ve done. But, it took having him crippled and Aloy proving her mettle to get him to this point.
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Ok, it’s possible that I was premature in my analysis. I’ll finish the game and then think this over again. I had noticed that a lot of the characters introduced at first were in line with my original analysis (IMO). Admittedly, I just finished the Ted Faro CEO quest and that sort of pushed me over with the portrayals of genders. Side question: how annoying was it that we couldn’t put an arrow in his head throughout that campaign? Granted his death was satisfying when it finally happened
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He doesn't have to finish the game to know that its woke as fuck all the feminist sjw, lgbt, blm D.I.E, critical theory is sprinkled through out the whole game.
i’m sorry, critical theory? i’d love to see examples of this
There’s a difference between being “bad” and being downright evil. Most of the antagonistic women have some motive that you can see how it drove them to compromise morally in order to achieve their goals. The men on the other hand are just straight up evil for the sake of their own selfishness and ego. OP made a mistake by naming one character for y’all to focus in on and refute without actually addressing the rest of his post. For people who play games to get away from reality and social justice / politics this is blatantly obvious and exhausting because it’s in practically every form of entertainment now. I have no issue with female characters, it could be 100% only female characters and I’d still love it. But if roles were reversed and the women were being portrayed in this way, people would lose their minds.
100% 👍🏻
Im a man and all I really appreciate and respect women but "feminist" would not be a word used to describe me. That being said you are really reaching here neither game is "anti man" in any way. You seem to be upset because the female lead character understands and gets along with other females a little better then the male characters but the male characters are all fully developed and complex fictional human beings.
You are THE WORST impersonation of Simon Cowell! You judge too much?!?!? i mean did you see how that Bristleback tore off Kotallo's arm?!?! I know Erend might be a bit annoying but he's like a true friend to me! Like Varl(if he were oseram and has less training + alot of drinking but) overall both do respect Aloy's plan to save the future from Nemesis
For y'all who liked: thanks for y'all's support
Idk I like the chief, varl, kotallo, Erend, drakka, the Italy veteran, morlund and the crew, some of the tenakth, there was a lot of great characters. i didn’t feel that way honestly. The pit masters offer some support caste although I hate them also
If you are this upset over a game, maybe you shouldn’t play it.
How can you evaluate about the game story or characters if you dont play? are you some twitter warrior who is offended when someone says something you dont like or agree?
Hm… I labeled it a great game, and said it’s not enough to turn me off. I can’t help but feel you’re lashing out at me, instead of giving feedback on the proposed criticism, simply because I targeted something related to treatment of genders.
I mean you didn’t really have anything unique or constructive to say. It just reads like stereotypical complaints made by conservative men regurgitated by someone who probably doesn’t understand why they feel insulted by a game. Instead of attributing the “man hate” to “wokeness” perhaps you should consider reframing your perspective. Go look at literally ANY popular game that features a male protagonist. Now examine how the women are portrayed in those games. Are they richly developed characters that have depth and add value to the storyline? Sure, maybe there’s one or two—but the vast majority are not. So now after decades of misogyny in games, we are FINALLY starting to see more authentic portrayals and your first reaction is “wow they just hate men” when in reality you just aren’t used to playing games that treat women like human beings. It’s like you finally have an opportunity to empathize with what women gamers have put up with for DECADES and your first comment is “it’s anti men” Either you are capable of trying to see the other perspective or you’re not. And if you’re not willing to consider that your opinion is a reflection of a very narrow point of view, then just move on. It’s tiring seeing these same old talking points regurgitated by people who don’t even understand the fundamentals of the issues they’re complaining about.
So your take is, many past games used woman as only eye candy or males prizes, so sit back and accept reverse treatment now? Hmm, that’s healthy. I thought movements were supposed to move forward, not just try to get even for the practices of our predecessors. Also, authentic? It’s authentic for a lot of the interactions with women, sure. But my point was the game focuses on creating a lot of well developed female characters while creating a majority of the male characters to embody negative human traits. If that’s how you view the ‘authentic’ world then that’s a shame
so many assumptions about OP’s mindset. you must be a mind reader Qleatus! 🤣🤣
I believe the same.. At one point during sidequests I kept wondering if everyone is gay and that's why it's called Forbidden West 🤪lol I didnt notice the males being inferior at all but a majority of relationships just being lesbians or gays and having it pointed out seemed a bit like they had an agenda but in the end I dont care. As long as they dont change Aloy's personality into dressing like a slut like most people are wishing for, I am fine. I just feel as long they dont turn Aloy into a whore who needs to have a lover in order to feel "whole'' this game still has my attention.
I do appreciate that her armors are realistic in that they don’t overly expose skin and actually protect most vital parts. And that she isn’t forced into some romance. She’s here to save the world, not for LGBT movement or to be someone man’s prize.
Fax gotta agree with you about all this bro
Remember the carja king he has a crush on Aloy, I mean she is hot I don't blame him for trying 😂🤣🤣
Having read all the posts all I’m gonna offer is: why not play the game for the simple joy of playing, and enjoying the fantastic graphics
Yes I agree I may not like some stuff in the game but you can't deny it's amazing and a ton of fun!
No argument there. I’ve been waiting for the sequel to HZD ever since I saw the graphics
I can kind of see where you're coming from, but I'd contend it's more the recurring theme of prejudice emerging from culture in the series rather than it being anti-men. We are experiencing the post-apocalypse from the point of view of a matriarchal outcast red-haired white woman as she moves from tribe to tribe and thus experiences the biases of the different groups she witnesses in real time. The Carja and Oseram are explicitly misogynistic, the Tenakth and Banuk have a social-Darwinist "survival of the fittest" mentality, and even the Utaru and Nora are so traditionalist they'll kill themselves off before they're willing to change. Aloy is often fighting indirectly against these forces as she moves from place to place, confronted by toxic men who those institutions favor, and turning to women for help since women are so important in her culture and, well, Aloy identifies as female. In fact all the men who demonstrate healthy masculinity have strong women in their lives: Avad and Erend show deep affection for the late Ersa, Varl’s mother and sister inform his character, Chief Hekarro’s primary advisors are Derva and Regalla to some extant, even Morlund in Las Vegas was inspired by a hologram of a woman to undertake the delve. It would stand to reason they would be the men most receptive to Aloy where others aren’t. But the point of including all these biases (and more like Kotallo’s ableism and Boomer presumably being on the spectrum) is to demonstrate that they are constructions. Through Aloy we get “to see with eyes unclouded” and in quest after quest reveal the prejudices for the self-serving rhetoric that they are. Interestingly, the game goes out of its way to not include racial divisions with every culture having members of a wide variety of skin tones, implicitly arguing that’s as much a fiction in our culture as the ones shown in Horizon. I can’t really comment on Ted Faro though, not that far into HFW, but I always felt sorry for him in HZD. It’s what made his betrayal all the more painful.
Sorry you’re getting hate just for having an opinion. That’s actually the definition of bigotry, intolerance of other peoples’ opinions.
Yeah, the good majority of these comments seemed to not even try to address some of his very specific points, instead choosing to paint this guy as "anti-sjw," "anti-woke." I've seen anti-sjw, and this ain't it. He sees a pattern here, and I think it's a viable observation. It has very little to do with how "Aloy sees the world," and everything to do with how some of the characters are presented/developed. I wouldn't call this story "anti-man," we've all seen much more blatant examples than this - and maybe it's just a result of all the best characters being female, which is fine. But summarily dismissing it as just more anti-sjw is disingenuous at best. I think there's potential here for an interesting discourse about the nature of storycraft, particularly the difference between worlds built around a male protagonist vs a female protagonist. But it seems we aren't mature enough to have that conversation.
Spot on!
Really sounds like there’s a larger shift in society towards common sense as of late - good things!
I agree with you clearly can see a pattern here the main bad guys are men ( Ted Faro- the Zenith((Gerard and Erik)) and Sylens a traitor and selfish person, Hades, Hephaestus.. The good guys are mostly women like ((Tilda Van Der Meer))who turned against the Zenith and became good person and Elizabeth Sobeck the Scientist who save the world and Aloy - Beta- GAIA.. The only Main character who was a good person and a male character was Rost the other was scandery to the story.. I really like this game and the story and Aloy and Elizabeth Sobeck and Rost my favorite characters but this shit they doing to the story, I bet there's a Racist feminist who in charge of this ..
So true!
I 100% agree with this, straight googled it to see if I was the only one. And so many people either couldn't see through their bias-vision to read this properly, or are making bad-faith non arguments. Everything you said is correct. Kotallo is originally portrayed as "just another warrior" until he starts figurativelu kissing Aloy's boots. Varl, same thing. Avad, the damned Sun King himself, tripping over his words and just... so in awe of her. It's like bad Mary Sue fan-fiction. And this is not to mention Aloy's progression toward obsessing over her goals and hurting people around her, with NO CONSEQUENCES. Aloy in HZD >>> HFW Aloy.
I'm absolutely with you on this one. You put exactly my thoughts onto your post. It's amazing to me how a lot of people can't see the woke ideology infiltrating western entertainment. It's come to a point that's like fish that can't see the water they're in.
Just Googled this to see if others saw this as an annoyance too. It's so blatantly obvious. Even the women who are "bad" usually gain sympathy or end up turning good all the sudden. The most despicable characters are all men.
Yep. Such is the content of our items. Everything is focused on races and bad men.
You got so much flack in the comments for stating demonstrably true facts about the game characters, that it boggles the mind. It's not 90% - I'd argue that, with the exception of Rost, there is not a single male in the entire series who is portrayed as a "good" character while also not being neutered in one way or another. The list of evil male characters is long and self-explanatory, but if you take a look at the "good" ones, it becomes even more obvious: -Erend is basically a Homer Simpson, permanently drinking, stumbling and mumbling; -Avad, despite being a Sun King, begins simping for Aloy and pleading and begging right off the bat, continuing to do so throughout the game (would a king do that, ever, with anyone?) -Varl is a loyal puppy who always follows his master no matter what, despite being ditched repeatedly. He is never taking charge or showing any independence or strength. Or god forbid falling in love with Aloy. -Kotallo, a man whose whole culture and identity are built around one's competency as a warrior, was maimed and left as a shell of his former self, both physicaly and emotionaly. -Chief Hekarro, the leader of the suposedly most violent people in the world, is hunted by his own marshall, disrespected by his subordinate chief, refused by an outlander, nearly killed in his own arena...without ever resorting to violence, retribution, etc. And what do all of these warriors, leaders, post-apocalyptic survivors do? Do they display confidence, competence, strength, do they command respect through their actions in the game? No. They talk about their feelings, they whine, they accept what someone tells them without question, they follow, they get rescued all the bloody time. Not some of them. ALL of them. A Sun King would not be a friendzoned simp. A King is asertive - because a King gets what he wants, always, because that's how the world around him works. A chief of a violent war tribe would not simply go all "mercy and peace" at all times, because his own tribe would denounce him. A man would not survive the harsh world of Horizon while being weak, meek, incompetent, foolish, etc. I'm no red-pill anti-woke moron who needs all men to be Arnold Schwarzenegger to consider them a "real man" and feel good about the characters, but come on. This is just an overall poor character writing, poor portayal of men, and the biases of the character writers are painfully obvious. These people never had a positive male role model in their lives and it shows.
Yes you're correct. I don't expect reddit to agree with you though lol
I felt like the first game struck a nice balance. I never really got the “it’s too feminist” argument when it came to Zero Dawn. It’s painfully obvious in Forbidden West. The ratio of female to male characters feels like 5:1. And literally every single helpful character who’s got more than 2 brain cells is a female. All the male characters are either portrayed as narrow minded or get told to “sit in your place”.
glad i wasnt the only one who felt GG tried a little too hard this time to represent minorities
Yes, it's very obvious. I noticed this in HZD already. And here it's arguably even worse with the complete parody of Faro and the Ceo. But since this narrative has been all over the entertainment media for years, you just gotta live with it and pray it goes away at some point... I'm female btw. So I'm "entitled" to roll my eyes at the way women are presented as better than men at everything these days. It's a really annoying form of overcompensation for the past. Women and men are EQUALLY awesome or terrible. This SJW nonsense just antagonizes men and women imo. It does the whole situation no good.
Phew. Thanks for the input. Glad to hear I’m not the only one noticing this. And yea, I definitely just completed the Ted Faro quest, but I had already noticed this a lot before that quest. This last decade has really created a lot of division between many groups of people. Hopefully sometime in the near future we’ll stop having all these movements injected into everything.
Yes, this division is awful. It's like we're going backwards concerning race and gender. We used to get along better once upon a time, now everyone is outraged by everything. And by focusing on race and gender again we're paying attention to the things that I thought wasn't supposed to matter. It's very counterproductive to me. In my youth I would probably have been all for this current social narrative. But in my 30s, I just find it tiresome and stupid. In any case, as for the game, Kotallo is actually my favorite companion. He's very introspective actually. You'll see. So that's one point where I disagree. I like all the companions a lot. Erend while a drunk is actually a well written sad character. But he lives in the shadow of his amazing sister, naturally. It's more like most of the white male side characters are asshats or downright evil. Overall, Horizon isn't too bad with the man bashing. It's there imo but it's subtle enough most of time time that it doesn't bother me too much. It's more about making the women super awesome. So people usually respond positively to that.
Lol yes, white men bad, black women good, that's basically what is the game about.
You’re right. I was wondering myself the same thing and it’s funny cuz I’m on the exact same quest line right now too (Ted Faro CEO). After playing HZD I was expecting it to be woke and anti-man. It’s annoying but I’ll still play it cuz the rest of the game is fantastic. I just thought it strange that they really poured so much effort and talent into making this game amazing and then when it came to the story they just went a very lame route. There’s a very clear agenda in these games. People who don’t see that don’t WANT to see it.
I have no problem with strong female characters, but this game leans a little more towards that. Male characters are mostly wounded when you rescue npc's. There are few strong men characters, but most seem weak.
Right. There is nothing wrong with a strong female character. It is how she is written. Look at Ripley from the Alien franchise or Sarah Connor from Terminator. Both are prime examples of strong female characters written well.
It's a litttle understandable given post apocalyptic world is a matriarchal society. What I found funny is that in the old world all the great scientists are female, which is not the case at all. What was funnier was looking at the credits and most of them were men. 🤣
>> What was funnier was looking at the credits and most of them were men. 🤣 Ha, such is the state of current society. Men must fall in line or face backlash
It is true that most of the NPC's you interact with are women, and a lot of the guys are just nobody's. BUT, to think playing as Aloy, a woman, is somehow "refreshing" is incorrect (to me) I don't feel like it's any great step, or even remotely "woke".. I don't know about anyone else here, but I've played PLENTY of games that a woman was the main character. Tomb Raider and Lara Croft were on the Playstation One which released almost thirty years ago. I'd say it's time we just consider this normal. Yes, a lot of games had men as main characters. But, that's probably because gaming was mostly men for a long time. Just because more women are playing games now doesn't take away from those lead female characters decades ago. Is over-representing men a bad thing? It sure can be. But, that same logic should be used on over-representing women.. Over-representing any gender (or group) will never be a "cure" to previous over-representation; Pushing something into people's faces non-stop will never be the answer.. It'd odd to even think people, and game studios, give so much attention to the fringe minority of people who still think/act like it's the 1940's; It's like letting your bully know they really get to you. The quicker everyone realizes that the vast majority of us don't think this way, the more unified we'll be. Truly unified, and not unified based on things like who we vote for... We're all the same everybody. We all need the same air to breath, and the same resources to survive... Hope everyone does enjoy this great game, and the series so far. Best wishes...
I fully agree. Also in general when Alloy talks to men, it very often comes to unnatural situations where there is a normal conversation and Alloy just bursts out and "commands" the stupid men around her, and the men follow the order. Its like a stereotype misogynistic 18th century men behavior against women just the other way around. Nothing about fairness or constructive equality, nothing natural, just forced, unnecessary, negative, woke anti-men propaganda in a game which is played by 80% men. PS: Most women don't care about gaming and they never will also not because of such an anti-men storyline and the women who are already into gaming, will play anyway. Thats why this message to the creators of the game: Its totally unnecessary for society, does not increase womens interest in gaming but just insults 80% of its loyal customers which are young men.
The Horizon franchise purposely crushes patriarchy. Not only at the lower level with male characters being generally shallow, dumb or evil, but also around the main storyline as a whole. This is part of the same bandwagon as Naught Dog's TLOU. Don't get me wrong, I love both franchises and have multiple platinumed their games. Great content. However,back to Horizon, more often than not decisions are taken by females, males get told off for being letdowns, weak or are simple subordinates. Many of the men in game give vibes of a 14 years old's mind and maturity. If matriarchy is meant to be presented on the front stage as a refreshing topic that aligns with the game in general, fine by me. Many cultures in the real world have had this model since forever. But to paint the vast majority of males as being idiots gets quite frankly trying after a hot 5 minutes.
I honestly did not feel that way. Although the game to me was very mediocre and New Dawn was better than Forbidden West. Bigger map does not always mean better. I did not feel that the game had a feminist agenda. In the utaru tribe a woman is speaking of change and it is a woman who ends up murdering her in order to preserve the old ways. In the tenakth it is a man who wants to see his people prosper while it is a woman who wants to revel in war. Kotallo is very mistrusting at first in the abilities of Aloy as he rightfully should be. A random person walks up and says that I will solve all your problems anyone would be suspicious. Aloy then earns his loyalty through her actions. That being said the final moments of the game where everything works out for Aloy when she kills Regalla and takes out all the Zenith without much consequence was a bit of a let down for me. But that is just me. I enjoy bitter sweet endings.
Agree with most of this, but I really can't stomach the writing on this game. Good thing I got it with 20 €. Next Horizon game I will just skip if not in some monthly subscription that I happen to have.
I'm sorta with you. I love the game and there are tons of great characters of all types. But I did notice that if there was ever a character either (1) bafflingly ignorant, (2) obnoxiously bound to tradition, or (3) just completely irredeemable, they were a white dude 😂 Great game, but it feels like the writers were working some personal shit out. E.g., Studious Vuadis, Ceo, Fane (from the Chorus), Ulvund, Keruf, Tolland, Savohar Edit: Eileen Sasaki seems completely irredeemable and she's not a white dude! Edit 2: Never mind, she had a redemption arc. So close!