Kynes being a woman @devs and anyone who still doesnt get it

[Spicy Grasshopper]

So I went away, opened one of the books I own on design principle.
Found the chapter I wanted and now I can share it with everyone here- in particular the devs.
I'd recommend reading the whole chapter, but for educational purposes on narrative design and choice I am going to pull a couple of parts.

"Chapter 10
Don't have things happen for no reason

...
Because fiction is make-believe, it has to be *more logical* than real life if it is to be believed. In real life, things may occur for no apparent reason. But in fiction you the writer simply cannot ever afford to lose sight of logic and let things happen for no apparent reason.
To make your stories logical, and therefore believable, you work always to make sure there is always a reason for what happens.
For one thing, you always provide characters with the right background- upbringing, experience, information- to motivate them generally in the direction of the action you want to show them taking.
A character, if she is to act with seeming reason, must come from a personal background that qualifies her to accomplish your plot action. You must set things up so that her general background- family, upbringing, education, health, whatever- make it seem reasonable that she would act as you want her to act in the story.
As an extreme example here, let's say you want your character to preach a sermon some Sunday in a southern baptist church, citing the life of Christ as the perfect type to emulate. Only a slow thinker would fail to put *something* in the story earlier to show how the character was either brought up in a Christian home, or went through a religious conversion to Christianity. Thus the general background must be given, or else the characters actions may seem to come from no logical origin.
Following the same example a step further, remember that the general background may not be enough. Your readers will also want to know the more recent event or events that have given your character to do what she is doing right now. Thus, in the example cited, you might have the Christian woman's minister husband fall suddenly ill, which prompts her, in desperation, to fill in for him after the congregation has already assembled.
...
A great many stories tend to be unbelievable because the writer just shoved a character onstage to do something without thinking through how and why the character got there.
You must constantly examine your story logic to make sure you have not inadvertently committed the same error."

The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (and how to avoid them), written by J. Bingham (1992).


If you still don't get it or think gender bending and race bending "just works" 1) you aren't a designer. 2) you aren't a writer. 3) you do piss on Frank Herbert- because you are ignoring his design choices. 4) this game will be dead in a few months.

[davidb11]

I'm not sure why you'd poke fun at my argument, or my way of speaking, but alright.
Bottom line, this is basically a mountain out of a molehill situation.

[JamesTBG]

And again. Who cares if it is male or female. It is still an academic discussion without impact on the game mechanics. Does Fremen play different if there heroes where males? Or is it an affront to the nerd genes?

[Patsanas]

Publicado originalmente por davidb11:

Publicado originalmente por Patsanas:

Fremen are a tribal society, they literally chose their leader based on strength in combat. Stilgar or Kynes being woman makes no sense, because men are physically stronger than women.

You do know that women can beat men in physical combat, right? Not all of them are weak. THat doesn't make sense to ever claim.
And a tribal society would have a combination of fighters of both genders.
Also, women fight dirty. So, they would win by default. :P

Have you ever seen any sports competition ever? There's a reason why kynes and stilgar are men and why benegesserites are women ir the source material. The fact that man and women are equal doesn't mean they are not different.

[davidb11]

Sorry, but your claim there makes no sense. Period.
THe fact of the matter is, you can never claim a woman cannot beat a man in a combat situation.
It has happened for literally at least the last 3000 years in the real world. :P

[Patsanas]

Publicado originalmente por davidb11:

I'm not sure why you'd poke fun at my argument, or my way of speaking, but alright.
Bottom line, this is basically a mountain out of a molehill situation.

If all you have to say is that "your point of view makes no sense. Period." without any arguments or "this is not important" then this discussion is probably not for you or you are trolling. Because of these reasons I will not address you from now on.

[davidb11]

Publicado originalmente por Patsanas:

Publicado originalmente por davidb11:

I'm not sure why you'd poke fun at my argument, or my way of speaking, but alright.
Bottom line, this is basically a mountain out of a molehill situation.

If all you have to say is that "your point of view makes no sense. Period." without any arguments or "this is not important" then this discussion is probably not for you or you are trolling. Because of these reasons I will not address you from now on.

Then you lost your argument and cannot be taken seriously by anyone here.
You literally insult and attack people, and refuse to make sense with your complaints.
Do not go against all established rules for debate and discussion.
You lost, good day, sir.

[holy-death]

Publicado originalmente por Patsanas:

Fremen are a tribal society, they literally chose their leader based on strength in combat. Stilgar or Kynes being woman makes no sense, because men are physically stronger than women.

Well, straight from the book:

"They obey the preservation of the tribe," he said. "It is the way we choose among us for a leader. The leader is the one who is strongest, the one who brings water and security."

He lifted his attention to her face. She returned his stare, noted the whiteless eyes, the stained eyepits, the dust-rimmed beard and mustache, the line of the catchtube curving down from his nostrils into his stillsuit.

"Have I compromised your leadership by besting you, Stilgar?" she asked.

"You did not call me out," he said.

"It's important that a leader keep the respect of his troop," she said.

"Isn't a one of those sandlice I cannot handle," Stilgar said. "When you bested me, you bested us all. Now, they hope to learn from you . . . the weirding way . . . and some are curious to see if you intend to call me out."

She weighed the implications.

"By besting you in formal battle?"

He nodded. "I'd advise you against this because they'd not follow you. You're not of the sand. They saw this in our night's passage."

Technically Lady Jessica could call Stilgar out in an attempt to be a leader, but it wouldn't work. Not because she's a woman but because she is not considered a Fremen at that point in time. And Stilgar outright acknowledges her, a woman, beating him - the best of them - which is a huge part of the reason why the decided to take Jessica with them.

So there is no real problem with a woman leading the Fremen, provided that said woman is really the strongest of the tribe, which isn't too far fetched, considering the strongest people in the whole Dune series are the Bene Gesserit - the order of women.

This means all you had to do is come up with a different character if you wanted female Fremen leader. But then you couldn't use all the other characters from the book and that's why the developers decided to breach their own approach of staying faithful to the book, sadly.

As I said before - Emperor: Battle for Dune did it best by having its own cast of characters, while still making them all feel Dune-like. Because there is absolutely no excuse for gender swapping an established character from the books just to have more women in the game. But I guess that's how politics work.

[Patsanas]

Publicado originalmente por holy-death:

Technically Lady Jessica could call Stilgar out in an attempt to be a leader, but it wouldn't work. Not because she's a woman but because she is not considered a Fremen at that point in time. And Stilgar outright acknowledges her, a woman, beating him - the best of them - which is a huge part of the reason why the decided to take Jessica with them.

So there is no real problem with a woman leading the Fremen, provided that said woman is really the strongest of the tribe, which isn't too far fetched, considering the strongest people in the whole Dune series are the Bene Gesserit - the order of women.

This means all you had to do is come up with a different character if you wanted female Fremen leader. But then you couldn't use all the other characters from the book and that's why the developers decided to breach their own approach of staying faithful to the book, sadly.

Yes, technically a women could be leading fremen. What is far fetched is that strongest fremen women would beat the strongest fremen man. In the books stilgar had emerging oponents but none of them were women. I would be more pleased if fremen faction were led by the holy mother, since she is most knowledgeable about strategic decisions (the role player is assuming). Or they could just keep kynes a man, I don't understand why it's mandatory to have a woman leader. I can understand their perspective that most people didn't read the book and just saw the movie, but as a dune fan I got disappointed.

[Angry Obnoxious Goose]

Publicado originalmente por davidb11:

Publicado originalmente por Patsanas:

Fremen are a tribal society, they literally chose their leader based on strength in combat. Stilgar or Kynes being woman makes no sense, because men are physically stronger than women.

You do know that women can beat men in physical combat, right? Not all of them are weak. THat doesn't make sense to ever claim.
And a tribal society would have a combination of fighters of both genders.
Also, women fight dirty. So, they would win by default. :P

I also wonder how those spindly old martial artists men can kick ass then when they can barely walk.
Well it's called a combat style based around exercising the peak limits of what power you do have.
Yes men on average does have a stronger physique than, say, women - but this is a planet literally a death sentence to those that are just not hardy enough to survive.
Nevermind also including that the Fremen ain't fighting with bodystrength, but rather with speed, agility and rapid-strike maneuvers designed to sink that Crysknife into their opponent before they can even BEGIN to think about striking back.

I guess David dunno that the Bene Gesserit is also strong enough to kick any male's ass in the whole Dune Universe, can literally SMELL facedancers, and can force their bodies to rapid-clot any bleeding, as well as convert ingested poisons if aware about it to make them harmless.
Oh and there's The Voice that can literally make others do whatever the Bene Gesserit Sister wants, from killing their best friend, to surrender all information they might be carrying, to just sit and await death.
This is something no man (with like a singular unique exception being the kwisatz haderach, or more like any male with the right genetics for the potential) could ever handle.

[Angry Obnoxious Goose]

Publicado originalmente por Patsanas:

Publicado originalmente por holy-death:

Technically Lady Jessica could call Stilgar out in an attempt to be a leader, but it wouldn't work. Not because she's a woman but because she is not considered a Fremen at that point in time. And Stilgar outright acknowledges her, a woman, beating him - the best of them - which is a huge part of the reason why the decided to take Jessica with them.

So there is no real problem with a woman leading the Fremen, provided that said woman is really the strongest of the tribe, which isn't too far fetched, considering the strongest people in the whole Dune series are the Bene Gesserit - the order of women.

This means all you had to do is come up with a different character if you wanted female Fremen leader. But then you couldn't use all the other characters from the book and that's why the developers decided to breach their own approach of staying faithful to the book, sadly.

Yes, technically a women could be leading fremen. What is far fetched is that strongest fremen women would beat the strongest fremen man. In the books stilgar had emerging oponents but none of them were women. I would be more pleased if fremen faction were led by the holy mother, since she is most knowledgeable about strategic decisions (the role player is assuming). Or they could just keep kynes a man, I don't understand why it's mandatory to have a woman leader. I can understand their perspective that most people didn't read the book and just saw the movie, but as a dune fan I got disappointed.

They aren't wrestling tho, It's a knife-fight to the death, based around stabbing, not also punching and kicking and whatnot.
Also Bene Gesserit 'Weirding Way' Training is all there's needed.

[Angry Obnoxious Goose]

Publicado originalmente por holy-death:

As I said before - Emperor: Battle for Dune did it best by having its own cast of characters, while still making them all feel Dune-like. Because there is absolutely no excuse for gender swapping an established character from the books just to have more women in the game. But I guess that's how politics work.

Ahh yes, Worf and Premier Romanov who has a legacy (and eyebrows galore) to consider!
Truly, I miss those old FMV-incorporated games.
Imagine games like the Total War series, but sometimes in between turns and actions, an FMV played with lots of camp, but in all the good ways.
I still recall those minivids in Shogun 2 when you sent ninjas or Geishas, etc. to assassinate or otherwise do missions. The fails were hilarious.

[Black Hammer]

Realism is a moot point in Dune, considering half the cast have magical powers as a core part of the plot.

Genderswapping Kynes bugs me slightly, but it's more annoying to me they made her the leader of the Fremen. Kynes may lead their planetary reclamation projects, but never really unites them politically or militarily in any way.

It takes Paul to do that. Who is, again, magical.

[Patsanas]

Publicado originalmente por Phoenix Legacy:

Publicado originalmente por Patsanas:

Yes, technically a women could be leading fremen. What is far fetched is that strongest fremen women would beat the strongest fremen man. In the books stilgar had emerging oponents but none of them were women. I would be more pleased if fremen faction were led by the holy mother, since she is most knowledgeable about strategic decisions (the role player is assuming). Or they could just keep kynes a man, I don't understand why it's mandatory to have a woman leader. I can understand their perspective that most people didn't read the book and just saw the movie, but as a dune fan I got disappointed.

They aren't wrestling tho, It's a knife-fight to the death, based around stabbing, not also punching and kicking and whatnot.
Also Bene Gesserit 'Weirding Way' Training is all there's needed.

You are not addressing any of my arguments. Fencing is also based around stabbing, but women are not competing against men.

Overall this choice was made to appeal to a broader audience. Choices like this is the difference between experiencing art and consuming a product. I thought that by seeing the success of fromsoft more devs would opt to make no compromises, but I guess not.

[TCPippin]

Publicado originalmente por Gaz:

I cannot believe we keep having to deal with idiots who rant like this. What do you hope to achieve? Do you really think they will change it? All you do is expose yourself as terrible human beings.

The fact that you call people "idiots" and "horrible beings" just for having a different opinion tells a lot about you. Reported.

And yes, I hope that devs will wise up and change that. Or at least they'll withdraw their claim of doing "Frank Herbert's Dune" and say that they're doing "Denis Villeneuve's dune"

[Patsanas]

Publicado originalmente por Phoenix Legacy:

Publicado originalmente por Patsanas:

Yes, technically a women could be leading fremen. What is far fetched is that strongest fremen women would beat the strongest fremen man. In the books stilgar had emerging oponents but none of them were women. I would be more pleased if fremen faction were led by the holy mother, since she is most knowledgeable about strategic decisions (the role player is assuming). Or they could just keep kynes a man, I don't understand why it's mandatory to have a woman leader. I can understand their perspective that most people didn't read the book and just saw the movie, but as a dune fan I got disappointed.

They aren't wrestling tho, It's a knife-fight to the death, based around stabbing, not also punching and kicking and whatnot.
Also Bene Gesserit 'Weirding Way' Training is all there's needed.

"Stilgar studied him as they rode, and Paul realized the man was seeing this moment through the memory of how he had risen to command of the Tabr sietch and to leadership of the Council of Leaders now that Liet-Kynes was dead. He has heard the reports of unrest among the young Fremen, Paul thought. “Do you wish a gathering of the leaders?” Stilgar asked. Eyes blazed among the young MAN of the troop."