Metroid: Other M ruined gaming's greatest heroine ? Agree or not ?

[superchunk]

Khuutra said:

superchunk said:

1. He has authority over her because she decided to allow it given the circumstances and her wanting to show Adam that she isn't some wily teen any more. She wanted him to see her as a respectable soldier, which is demonstrated towards his end when he vocalizes how amazing she really is. Its not subservience in a negative intention but in a military order. If she was a man you wouldn't even mention this.

2. Samus states in the story that she objected out of childish reasoning not the level headed logic of a commander. She feels bad about this past and is over-complying with his orders in an effort to make up for these transgressions.

3. Humans seek approval from those they highly respect and Samus' past actions pushed her to strive for that approval. Was it needed? No. but, that doesn't mean someone won't try to seek it for their own self worth.

4. All of this is just part of the game. Does any Metroid game ever really make sense that she loses ALL of her capabilities in the beginning of each game? really? Its just Metroid. Every game has had her tough it without some suit at first and then its far easier on the way back once that suit is earned. In this game the fact is she decided to work with his rules and left everything. Granted, it makes more sense in regards to just the weapons than it does the suits, but that's just part of the game. No different really in terms of finding the 'lost' items later.

5. Never played Fusion so I have no real clue on this except that on the games I've played she was just a silent hero and did take some small orders  from the federation in the Prime games. So I think the story line fits in just fine.

6. It is a bad scene, but really not the way I see the game in its entirety.

7. This game is no different. It adds a human level to her character that has always been missing and I think fits perfectly fine with her identity and does not remove her bad-assed-ness. She clearly can still kick ass and even the cut scenes show that when it sets you up to fight Ridley etc.

I still think the perception that Samus must be a silent killer is a stereotypical portrayal of women soldiers based in Hollywood. There is no reason a strong-willed great fighter that Samus is cannot be feminine.

1. I would mention it if the man had been previously established as a lone and solitary bad-ass who was subservient to exactly no one. But since you agree that she is behaving in a subservient way, this point can safely be dropped, save to say this: Samus being in a situation where she's agreeing to be subservient for no real reason doesn't make sense for her character, and it reeks of a situaiton that was drummed up specifically to portray Samus in that light. It's ridiculous.

2. Samus stating it does not justify it, it just further illustrates how big a departure this is from her established character.

3. That doesn't justify the decision to take the story in that direction either. In fact, it just highlights how ill-fitting it is in the context of Metroid. "The word he intentionally used - outsider - pierced my heart." No.

4. You can't use game mechanics to handwave shitty narrative when Sakamoto has stated explicitly that narrative and mechanics are intrinsically intertwined. Samus doesn't use her Varia Suit, Gravity Suit, Speed Boost, Grapple Beam, Ice Beam, or any other primarily non-destructive weapons because Adam didn't tell her to, even though not using them has the potential to kill her. You can't rationalize that. There is no defense for that aspect of the narrative.

5. Samus took orders because she was being paid, and because her employers (they are not commanders, they are employers) never attempt to limit the way in which she operates. That is a large and stunning distance from what happens in Other M.

6. It fits the rest of the game perfectly.

7. It changes her character significantly in the addition on unnecessary plot elements that were engineered specifically to eradicate previous assumptions about the character (something which Sakamoto said very explicitely in an interview with Gamespot).

8. That's not the typical portrayal of female soldiers. The typical female soldier is the "tough bitch" whose sexuality is a sticking point and is constantly trying to prove herself to the men around her, or constantly trying to one-up them. There was nothing stereotypical in Samus's prior portrayals unless you think silent protagonists are a stereotype (they're not; they are a trope)

1-7 - we simply see the game differently and it boils down to #8.

8: You misinterpreted my point. I suggested that people with your arguments wanted that "tough bitch" and because she is not, that is the issue. I think the former is a bad stereotype and Samus' more feminine characterization based on her back story fits the overall idea of Samus just fine. After all a "tough bitch" wouldn't have let the baby Metroid survive in the first place. That action demonstrates her motherly compassion that is outside of the regular soldier ideology. A "tough bitch" wouldn't wear a skin tight zero suit with long flowing blond hair.

Her legacy has always been about her amazing warrior skills and capabilities combined with the fact that in the end she is a woman. To remove her potential feminine-ness or call that weak is a stereotypical sexist argument.

After all, its not like she was prancing around asking for others to help because she is too scared. She was running and gunning in every cut-scene except the breakdown moment. That in itself is the only moment I will grant you a complete reversal of her identity and should have been cut.