Castlevania: LoS 2 "rape" scene footage. You be the judge.

So a while ago an article came up saying that Dracula feeding on a woman in the game was a disturbing scene which reminded her of rapelay(the Japanese porn game where you literally rape women) and that it must be censored and removed from the game for being so terrible and rape like.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/yes-castlevania-lords-of-shadow-2-did-make-me-feel-uncomfortable-

Well, here it is. Watch it at 3:23 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv9IIDjV1zI

All I have to say is...wow, that woman must have a seriously fucked up mentality to consider that rape. I expected it to be far darker and more sexual like the feeding scene from an old Dracula movie where the girls sleeping in bed but no, it's not sexual, it's not rapey. How could you even link those together with this scene? Because she's screaming? Because he bites her? Last I checked someone screaming doesn't equal rape. It's another case of trivializing rape and sexism into a click bait article and it's gross. I'd say the slitting of the guys throat is far more graphic that the bite.

No. Nobody be the judge.

Looked like a cheesy vampire bite.

And why is that?

You really sensationalized that article huh?

@animasta: She did it herself and now she gets the backlash for it.

I was waiting to see something that I would remotely classify as objectionable and all I saw was a vampire biting a woman and sucking the life force out of her. Hilariously enough all this talk about this "scene" is doing nothing but drawing more attention to this game.

Oh God fuck today all the way.

Slits a guy's throat with a sharp claw. That's nothing. That's not even realistic.

Bites a woman's neck and magically sucks out her youth and energy. That's clearly meant to evoke rape and has to be taken out.

I'm just beyond disappointed.

I dunno. I don't know what the context was -- why they were in some weird room -- but regardless, it kind of made me uncomfortable?

I'm sorry?

That looked like a vampire bite. Anyone comparing that to sexual assault is a crazy person.

That article is garbage, the reporter is garbage. Fuck this stupid retarded industry. This is exactly why i don't read much of anything related to games anymore.

Umm, no? She comments: "this scene is kind of stunning for how blatant it is with its allusions to rape. It's a scene that forcibly reminds me of the boxart from RapeLay" and "I really hope they cut the Family Scene before Lords of Shadow 2 launches next month. In the end, it's a scene that serves to trivialize sexual assault". So the footage of the scene comes out and I say watch it and you be the judge. How is that being sensationalized?

It is supposed to make you uncomfortable. That was not the issue with this article. She tried to connect it to this game:

http://www.giantbomb.com/rapelay/3030-16696/

I wont be clicking on that link. I don't see a reason to draw attention to this person.

As if there isn't already enough threads currently going on about certain sensationalismmmms regarding sexism in the industry. And yeah, the scene is nothing to get worked up over. Pretty tame in the grand scheme of sexual vampire bitin'.

Also holy shit that guy has a brillo pad on his chin.

@darji: Yeah, did you see how she was dressed when she wrote that? She was asking for it!

Anyway, yeah, the OP completely misrepresented that article. It just says that the scene made her uncomfortable. Nowhere does it call for the scene to be censored or removed. It's just her opinion. Is that allowed?

@milkman:

I really hope they cut the Family Scene before Lords of Shadow 2 launches next month. In the end,

That was her whole intention by writing this article. This and to get clicks.

Yes it does. She says "I really hope they cut the Family Scene before Lords of Shadow 2 launches next month. In the end, it's a scene that serves to trivialize sexual assault". She flat out wanted it cut.

And since when can an opinion piece not be discussed?

@darji: No, she didn't. She compared it to the BOX ART.

You people are insufferable. It's funny that you call the original article "sensationalist" when there's way more sensationalism in the comments to this thread already than in the actual article.

Nope!

• There's no rape anywhere near that scene. No sexual violence, no sexual innuendo.
• Conceptually disturbing, duh. A family trapped in a room with dracula is killed one by one.
• Combat looks cool but UGH is that Big-Enemy-Stomps-the-Ground attack the only trick they have??

Today is turning into a shit show of threads. Please don't let this devolve any further.

"I HOPE"

Again, it's her opinion. She didn't like something. She expressed that. It's not a call for legal censorship or anything like that. It's just an article reflecting her opinion.

And sure, you can discuss opinion pieces but saying "MAN, THIS PERSON MUST HAVE MENTAL ISSUES" is probably not the best way to start a discussion.

She compared it to the boxart because it was a rape simulator. So every scene should now be censored when a parent is trying to protect their child by hugging and shelter it? This is not even close to an Rape Allusion at all. It is just someone killing the whole family while the family is trying to protect the people they love. The father the mother and Child and the Mother her child. . I know your stand on all this stuff but even you should see what bullshit this article is.

It is a call for Censorship due to public pressure.She never wanted it to be censored on a legal way because even she knows that this is laughable. Also this was not an Opinion. It was a Preview of the game. Opinions should be dealt with in editorials.

@milkman: I've heard often how game developers are allowed to make whatever games they want, but they're not exempt from outside criticism.

Game journalists who make wild criticism of games on the scarcest evidence; they're allowed to say whatever they want. Should they be exempt from outside criticism?

I'm playing some Dante's Inferno, and that game got a lot of boobs so far.

Oh, and that isn't rape, isn't similar to rape or reminds me in any way of rape.

That's what we should be talking about here.

@milkman: When someone decides to link a scene like that to trivializing sexual abuse, rape games, and hoping that it's censored because of how bad it is then yeah, I think you gotta be pretty mentally weird to jump to those opinions. That or you want clicks. You keep saying it's her opinion but saying that somehow void any mention of it? Someone can have an opinion but if it's idiotic and turned into a written article then I'm going to call them out. And like I said in the thread title, I was leaving it up to you to judge the video yourself.

@brodehouse: Not saying that. But in this specific case, I don't understand how you can criticize a person for saying "this made me feel uncomfortable." Everyone's different and to say this person must have a "fucked up mentality" for having a different reaction to something than you did isn't criticism. It's an attack. She's not saying the people who made the game are sexists or bad people. Hell, she says "I applaud Cox and his team for their desire to take on challenging material." By all means when games journalists write things like "this art was drawn by a 13 year old" or stuff like, give 'em hell. But this is not one of those cases.

Yeah, seriously lol. Can a mod edit the title?

What the hell happened to the world?

No one criticizes her of feeling uncomfortable. This is exactly what the scene is intended to do. However the rape allusion is just stupid. But the thing I take the most offensive of is not even the Boxcover comparision with Rapelay. The most I am upset about is "the hope of removing this scene" As a person with a public readership this is a clear sign of censorship due to public pressure.

@milkman: People aren't attacking her for being uncomfortable, they're attacking her comparing this to rape and trivializing sexual assault and the comparison to RapeLay. She is grasping at straws so hard that it hurts.

Nobody is criticizing her for feeling uncomfortable, nobody has even commented on it. People are criticizing her for claiming that the encounter trivializes sexual assault, that the encounter is intended to evoke sexual assault, that the game is intending us to find sympathy with rapists. She even attempts to portray the use of the female character as a prop to further Dracula's character development (and she is, so is the male character who dies moments before) as being inherently "problematic". There are numerous issues people have with her reasons for being uncomfortable, they are not arguing against her right to have emotions. You are revising the nature of situation in order for her to be victimized by it.

The "I applaud Cox and his team for their desire to take on challenging material". For one, I'd like any evidence whatsoever that this is "challenging material". It's a vignette where the villain protagonist vampire does exactly what vampires are known for. This is not the first game or story to have a morally flexible vampire in the protagonist role. Secondly, I find it completely ridiculous to say that you applaud something while you expressly call it terrible and attempt to turn public opinion against it. "I applaud the people who stand by the Constitution, but not having school prayer is victimizing religious children".

This is "challenging material" for those who are exceedingly poorly read. I find it difficult to believe that any adult person could just now be discovering protagonists who, shock and awe, sometimes do some pretty morally black stuff.

That's what made her uncomfortable about it. I'm not sure what else you want her to say. She saw the scene, to her, there were allusions to rape, it made her uncomfortable and she wrote about it. You can argue that's the point of the scene and I would probably agree. But whether it's the point or not, it's a perfectly valid perspective to say "I don't want to experience this." The scene made me pretty uncomfortable too and while my mind didn't immediately jump to "rape", I can see how someone (specifically, a woman who may or may not have experience with sexual assault, I have no idea) would jump to that. It's really not as absurd as you're making it seem.

@milkman: If you truly don't think this is absurd then i have nothing more to say to you. You are welcome to your opinion of course but don't expect me to think much of it. I don't care what you think of mine.

Your comment has made me uncomfortable because I feel that you're trying to make out all vampires to be sexual predators and inherently anyone who enjoys vampires in popular culture to be perverse voyeurs seeking pleasure from sexual attacks.

But that's just how I feel you know.

But do you know how many more clicks she probably got because she flung a bunch of dumb, unsubstantiated, controversial opinions around instead of making a regular text preview, the kind that no one reads anymore (Jeff's own words)? This is the Kotaku method and everyone falls for it every single time.

I don't really understand why people get so up in arms about anything potentially...rapey in video games, but countless movies and TV shows have pretty vicious and uncomfortable rape scenes. I remember the forced, male oral rape on The Shield, that made me uncomfortable as all hell.

Is a video game's cutscene any different to a movie? No it isn't, so shut the fuck up. The attitude against the people that complain about this stuff should be far harder instead of altering content or removing it entirely. Who cares if a bunch of video game sites start writing whiny articles, it'll all be forgotten about once the next shiny piece of two week controversy comes along.

Usually I'd chime in with some, "Hey man, try not to stereotype.", but I think that guy's neck actually is a beard.

@humanity: I know you're trying to be snarky but sex has always been a large part of vampire lore.

Well, to address your second point about this being "challenging material", there are numerous quotes in the article from the developer that make it clear that they're trying to push the envelope with the scene. It says that when she told him that it made her uncomfortable, he said "that's exactly what we wanted." It's pretty obvious that they want it be shocking.

As for the rest of your post, I direct you to my last post. Like I said, I don't think the idea of the game trying to evoke sexual assault is as absurd as you're making it out to be. It's all a matter of perspective. And speaking of perspective, as far as her point on evoking sympathy for Dracula, whether it's their intention or not, there's going to be people who play that scene and don't think "oh, this poor family." They're going to think "oh, this is badass!" Is that necessarily the developer's fault? Maybe? I don't know. It's hard to say outside of the context of the rest of the game.

And for the record, I am not arguing for the scene to be removed or even that the scene is bad. Or even that sexual assault should be some sort of off-limits thing in video game storytelling. I'm just saying I can see where she's coming from.

Yesssssssssss, sure it's bad enough that articles like this get written in the first place, but even smart people trip over each other to call attention to the article. And every ounce of attention someone like this gets, completely stomps over legit articles that are written about legit problems.

I can't even count how many times I've seen an article that is written about an actual problem get comments like "uhg, why are we even talking about this?", "this person is clearly just trying to get attention." etc etc etc through the roof because of Kotaku (and to a bigger extent, the Gawker entity as a whole) like articles.

If you see something, and you know in your heart of hearts the person is just trying to get views, then ignore, ignore it and just don't look so when an article is written in the future with actual debatable merits to it, it isn't lumped under the category that is this garbage.

You totally raped that five dollar footlong.

High five, bro!

Regardless of whether I think that's evocative of rape or not, that's a scene so terrible that I don't want to play it. I don't want to play a vampire murdering a child's parents in a game that presents realistic emotional responses. It's just too much, not interested.

Of all the people to accuse of click baiting, Kat Bailey? Really?

You don't have to agree with her, but you don't have to trivialize her work either.

That's it? What the fuck, man?

This thread is getting wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy out of hand. And if this is a rape scene, then this is probably the best rape scene ever. I mean, a vampire biting a powerless human? Oh my!

I don't need to click the link. I'm opposed to censorship in any shape way or form. No one forces you to watch or consume media that has things you don't like. If something bothers your sensibilities that badly then turn it off and go do something else. Artists and creators should never have to censor their work to appease anyone.

@milkman: But this is how people are. Someone finds something really sad or romantic while another person finds it hilarious and stupid. Listen to the latest Bombcast and how they are talking about scenes from the old Robocob Movie and how Jeff thought it was kind of badass how they executed Murphy in the beginning of the movie. Everoyne reacts different.

as for your perspective: If you go this route. For someone with a traumatic experience everything can be a trigger. Someone could throw an Egg on the floor and it could remind the person on something really terrible and awful that happened to him/her. Or someone could walk behind you and it could trigger some terrible memory of you being assaulted. This scene has absolute no sexual tension so we really should not compare it to this. It was a Vampire who killed an entire family including the child. That is what you should make you feel uncomfortable. And if you are a reporter or journalist and you really thought of an sexual assault. Than this is your personal opinion no one ever should question. However. If you write a preview article and your whole thing is about this scene and how it made you feel and even write that you hope they remove this scene. Than maybe Jouranlist is not the right job for you.

do an editorial, write a blog, or whatever but do not try and mix it with your journalistic duty. And if it is too much for you to handle it then let someone else do it.