Return to Monkey Island

[madmardi]

2 hours ago, OzzieMonkey said:

I wish I could watch it live but it'll be 4am in Australia 😅

 

Ya... 3 am here.

 

[ThunderPeel2001]

15 hours ago, KestrelPi said:

ReMI is coming out in September, if not earlier (but I doubt earlier), and if I'm wrong I will happily eat crow.

 

[Vainamoinen]

5 hours ago, Rum Rogers said:

Did I create the longest Mojo™ thread ever?!

 

With a little help from your friends!

[Garystu]

On 8/20/2022 at 3:24 AM, KestrelPi said:

 

I don't think anything you've said here is totally unreasonable, but I'd say (in brief-as-i-can because I don't really want to labour the point and I'm totally not taking my own advice at this point):

 

1) Sure, headcanons aside guybrush appears to be for all intents and purposes a cishet guy. That's fine. But there are more ways to have representation than in the main character. Not saying we're entitled to it, just saying that it's something when I think back on it that was notably almost completely absent from LucasArts games despite all the other ways they were pretty diverse.

 

2) Sure, in comedy a lot of stuff is played for laughs but I don't think that's a get out of jail free card. A character might be funny for lots of reasons, but just because they're, say, gay doesn't mean that their gayness has to be 'the joke'. In the early 90s that was about par for the course. It's representation, but it's... not great.

 

But for example in Tales you have the flirtatious but androgynous Mer-people where the whole gag is 'guybrush doesn't know how to feel about their flirting' which I think just about passes for a joke in the 2000s but now might be accused of being ... ehh maybe a little lazy. Not heinous, just... of its time.

 

----

 

Incidentally I think a trans read of Largo is perfectly plausible, and I definitely like it more than the (at the time no-doubt deliberate) joke of 'ha ha he's a tough guy but likes to wear bras' joke which is.. ehh. And the thought of that annoying the pants off exactly the sort of people you'd expect it to annoy is delicious. But I'm in two minds about whether I would like this game to tackle that.. I think I would welcome it if there were trans folks involved in the writing of that character who could speak to that experience

 

(okay I WILL try to stop now though, it's just that this is a fascinating topic for me)

 

I hope you two don't mind if I join the conversation here. I'll keep it going, unfortunately. 🙂

 

1. I might have some feelings on Guybrush headcanons, . skip

 

2. I love the merfolk. I think they're great characters. But also, if there was a Skunkape Tales remaster or something, there's some lines of dialogue around them that I would like to see changed.

 

I think the jokes where Guybrush's uncertainty around their gender identities are the punchline, are the worst bit. The bit I would want changed.

 

I get it about the flirting stuff and agree - but I also think a lot of it is extremely cute and endearing. It is dated, but it makes me smile.

 

Is Winslow and Anenome the first queer couple between main NPCs in Monkey Island? I really don't know, I very much could be forgetting some characters. Either way, I think they're a great couple. I love them.

 

3. Largo LeGrande.

 

Trying to justify the bra joke in retrospect wouldn't be great, imo. It just seems embarrassing to go back on it like that. "Oh, you thought the bra joke was queerphobic? We were just trying to tell you he was actually queer all along" or something. Eugh.

 

To be clear, I'm not opposed to Largo being canonically trans. Or somebody having a headcanon based on the bra. Its only the specific combination that I mentioned which would be a problem.

[Al.DeHyde]

I wonder why the bra was changed to a "clean, white shirt" in the MI2 Lite mode? You can just find it on his bed instead of having to get it from Mad Marty but it's strange they bothered to add a whole different item instead of just using the bra.

 

Having said that, perhaps players finding a bra in his messy room might assume it belonged to a woman he was with.

Edited August 20, 2022 by Al.DeHyde
To add the second paragraph.

[ThunderPeel2001]

43 minutes ago, Al.DeHyde said:

Having said that, perhaps players finding a bra in his messy room might assume it belonged to a woman he was with.

 

Yep, this.

[BaronGrackle]

2 hours ago, Guybrush Transmasc said:

Is Winslow and Anenome the first queer couple between main NPCs in Monkey Island? I really don't know, I very much could be forgetting some characters. Either way, I think they're a great couple. I love them.

I dare say we actually don't know. Chieftain Beluga never corrects Elaine when she uses a "he" pronoun for him, but I don't think we ever get gender answers on Anemone.

 

EDIT: Also, we aren't dealing with humans here. I think Chapter 1 had the pirate explain that the Merfolk had no words for "male" or "female"? For all we know, the Merfolk might not have gender concept or even be sexed at all. Elaine could be defaulting to "he" for Chieftain Beluga because he honestly doesn't care or understand the question!

Edited August 20, 2022 by BaronGrackle

[KestrelPi]

2 hours ago, Guybrush Transmasc said:

Trying to justify the bra joke in retrospect wouldn't be great, imo. It just seems embarrassing to go back on it like that. "Oh, you thought the bra joke was queerphobic? We were just trying to tell you he was actually queer all along" or something. Eugh.

 

To be clear, I'm not opposed to Largo being canonically trans. Or somebody having a headcanon based on the bra. Its only the specific combination that I mentioned which would be a problem.

I guess I meant it in the sense of, if they felt like that's what they wanted to do with the character, AND if they had a trans voice on the writing team to treat it properly, then I think that would be a viable way to go. I'm not necessarily saying that this is an angle I think they should go for.

 

I'd just like to say briefly that even if I think we shouldn't dwell too long, how much I appreciate that we can have this conversation in here and it not turn immediately into hell.

Edited August 20, 2022 by KestrelPi

[Aro-tron]

The bra joke was very confusing to me as a kid, and I’m not even sure it’s funny now. I think it would be interesting if Largo was trans*, but in my head canon that joke isn’t even in the game. 😌

 

(*I mean, sort of interesting, I guess … the queer evil sidekick is such an exhausting trope.)

[Jake]

I think more than anything the bra joke was just “it’s an unexpected garment to show up on the slowly revealing clothesline,” a surprising payoff to a multiple step puzzle where you know at the end you’ll get “something of the thread” belonging to Largo. In lite mode it’s something just sitting there, because the lite puzzle is “look for an obvious garment in his room,” and in that context a shirt is a very generic and comprehensible object. You can’t hang much more on it because there aren’t any other puzzle steps in place on which you can build anticipation and context so it’s generic. If guybrush just found a bra there, players wouldn’t assume it was largos, thered have to be an extra step there, which is inappropriate for lite mode. Instead Guybrush can say “it’s largos shirt,” and that passes player credulity because it looks enough like the one we’ve seen him wear. 
 

Agreed the bra as a punchline hasn’t aged great, but at least it’s mostly an innocuous moment of eyebrow-raising surprise and doesn’t get harped on. 
 

 

Apologies that some of this is just repeating what others said above. I missed a few posts 

[KestrelPi]

18 minutes ago, Jake said:

Agreed the bra as a punchline hasn’t aged great, but at least it’s mostly an innocuous moment of eyebrow-raising surprise and doesn’t get harped on.

Yeah, the best part of this joke is how it just happens basically without comment.

 

That's part of what I talked about before of how I felt like guybrush's comic style (and the game in general) has changed a bit over the years. In EMI and Tales I definitely feel like he'd have had something to say about that, and it prooobably would have aged even worse than this version of the joke from 1991.

[Vainamoinen]

3 hours ago, KestrelPi said:

Yeah, the best part of this joke is how it just happens basically without comment.

 

It's the same thing with the pink dress joke later in the game. But somehow I feel like the pink dress joke still works because of that.

[Garystu]

20 hours ago, BaronGrackle said:

I dare say we actually don't know. Chieftain Beluga never corrects Elaine when she uses a "he" pronoun for him, but I don't think we ever get gender answers on Anemone.

 

EDIT: Also, we aren't dealing with humans here. I think Chapter 1 had the pirate explain that the Merfolk had no words for "male" or "female"? For all we know, the Merfolk might not have gender concept or even be sexed at all. Elaine could be defaulting to "he" for Chieftain Beluga because he honestly doesn't care or understand the question!

 

Well, I said Winston and Anenome were queer, not gay. Anenome seems pretty clearly nonbinary, at least to me. But if Anenome isn't offering answers, I'm not asking.

 

Yes, there are some script issues with the handing of nonbinary characters in Tales. I could make up headcanons to excuse the writing, or I can just say the script writers didn't know how to write nonbinary characters. Its a 14 year old game, they can cop it. Tales could and should have done better.

 

But the merfolk are ultimately likeable and funny characters. They're pretty good, could have been better.

 

There are also representation issues, with only nonhuman characters being nonbinary. Tales is also a part of this trend. Individual examples aren't inheriently the problem, its a problem with the sum of media. I just wanted to point this criticism out, I have no big solution. I have one solution. Cool nonbinary human character in RTMI. or I will CANCEL Rob Gilbert ok this sentence is a joke. (seriously: since I'm describing a broad trend across all media here, one game can never be THE solution, but it can be a part of it)

 

 

19 hours ago, Aro-tron said:

but in my head canon that joke isn’t even in the game. 😌

 

hell yeah

 

You're also right about queer coded villains. I think its more fun to speculate in the here and now. But if MI had only one queer character for seventeen years and it was a cruel little minor villain, it wouldn't have been great.

 

Tales kinda gets away with De Singe, because it has more queer coded characters than just him. If De Singe was the only queer character in Tales, it would have been really bad.

 

13 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

 

It's the same thing with the pink dress joke later in the game. But somehow I feel like the pink dress joke still works because of that.

 

 

Its really interesting seeing the dress get a critical reassessment in current times. The content of the game hasn't changed, but society has around it.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Guybrush Transmasc
👙

[Al.DeHyde]

The thing that always confused me about the pink dress is that it's not a costume, it's a dress 🤔

[Vainamoinen]

27 minutes ago, Guybrush Transmasc said:

Its really interesting seeing the dress get a critical reassessment in current times. The content of the game hasn't changed, but society has around it.

 

It was felt to be a cheap joke back then that they didn't try to squeeze as many laughs out of as they could have. A throwaway joke. Now the chance cross dresser who doesn't at all feel queasy to cross dress feels progressive, I guess. But society will keep on changing and in thirteen years' time, who knows how those scenes will hold up.

 

Every Monkey Island got it wrong a little, and not just in a "product of its time" kind of way. Creators are human beings with the best intentions – Gilbert didn't call Anita Sarkeesian his personal hero for no reason at all – but you can not do everything right just because you try to. Already the choice to use the same voice actress for Carla and the Voodoo Lady ("vaguely black coded female voice actress") feels not ideal to me.

 

Sometimes I feel like we should rate the best intentions higher than the fuckups in the final narrative. It's certainly something I do when e. g. watching John Hughes movies. Another can of worms is of course that if the creator turns out to be a sack of shit, do you condemn his entire work of art, or not? I know I've made vastly differing choices in that respect. Thankfully, I don't see Ron Gilbert or Dave Grossman ever letting me down in that respect.

[BaronGrackle]

2 hours ago, Guybrush Transmasc said:

I have one solution. Cool nonbinary human character in RTMI.

I know this wasn't an ultimatum and was only a half-joke. But that was my point in the Largo example: how would you illustrate it?

 

Maybe the most natural way would be to have characters familiar with them start out in "they" pronouning. If you try anything else in visual terms, I doubt it would land well.

 

(In that sense it would be easier to depict nonbinary than trans in this type of game. It's not like Undertale/Deltarune, where a lion has a mane that could be tied up.)

Edited August 21, 2022 by BaronGrackle

[Al.DeHyde]

47 minutes ago, BaronGrackle said:

Maybe the most natural way would be to have characters familiar with them start out in "they" pronouning. If you try anything else in visual terms, I doubt it would land well.

 

That's a good idea. If the writers are too heavy-handed trying to let everyone know that a character is trans they could just end up seeming like a big one-dimensional stereotype. I think part of the issue is sometimes having a "trans character" instead of having a character who happens to be trans.

[Aro-tron]

Total, complete speculation -- I would not be surprised if Captain Madison and/or the new 'hip' pirate leaders are at least somewhat queer. I think their what we've seen of them so far seem to lean that way.

And considering that Ron, as grumpy as his persona may be, is probably is more sympathetic to nonbinary young folks than he is toward staunch traditionalists (like the Important Looking Pirates), I suspect that Captain Madison et al aren't going to be straight (ignore the pun) villains ...

How long until this game comes out??

[KestrelPi]

Even with the best will in the world and the greatest of respect for folks involved, I  have to admit I'd be surprised to discover that queer representation was preying heavily on their minds during the writing of this. Anything we get that's done well would be a lovely surprise, but I'm not counting on it. It has been almost nonexistant so far, which hasn't made me love it any less, but I don't want to get my hopes up for something that just might not be in their minds at all.

 

 

[Aro-tron]

I won't be disappointed if it's not in the game, and I don't expect that it's going to impact my enjoyment of the game one way or another (unless it's somehow very regressive), but I won't be surprised if they do something interesting with gender. Anyway, I want to be able to play it and not just speculate!

[Toymafia88]

So i'm expecting today's Monkey Island Monday to be the very last.

 

Then release date trailer tomorrow.

[OzzieMonkey]

2 minutes ago, Toymafia88 said:

So i'm expecting today's Monkey Island Monday to be the very last.

 

Then release date trailer tomorrow.

If they say it's the last one, I fully expect the game to be out super soon. Now what's everyone's guess for what we see? 

 

I'm guessing either Voodoo Lady, Elaine, Murray, or something with the UI.

[KestrelPi]

I think they're going to continue them up to the release of the game since it doesn't make a ton of sense to start doing less stuff in the run up to the game. But if they're gonna stop at any other point this would be it, because at least there'll be other stuff to show

[BillyCheers]

I expect today’s MI Monday to be a full Let’s Play of the game as a last little teaser before the release.

Edited August 22, 2022 by BillyCheers

[OzzieMonkey]

I'm a little nervous about the trailer tbh, excited for a release date, but worried that we'll see too much. I feel like at this point, most of us could do without another trailer and just play the game already 😜