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REVIEW: Fate/stay night Blu-Ray 1


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Zac
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Joined: 05 Jan 2002
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 7:16 pm Reply with quote
russ869 wrote:
It is noble and praiseworthy for a person to protect a person (even if he or she fails)


Here, now it's not ragingly sexist and old-fashioned.
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getchman
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 7:21 pm Reply with quote
Shirou is still a goddamn moron though. why let the the person who led a country and fought valiantly alongside her men fight the 15 foot demigod and maybe win, when you can just do it yourself despite having absolutely no combat experience or a weapon?
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ikillchicken



Joined: 12 Feb 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 7:39 pm Reply with quote
russ869 wrote:
These are simply intrinsic facts, because they are true definitionally. The very definitions of masculinity and femininity involve (not completely, but primarily) giving and receiving protection respectively.


No. Even if you are correct that to some degree to be "feminine" is defined as you say...that has precisely fudge all to do with the definition of female. To be female is by definition to have female genitalia. Nothing more. There is absolutely no inherent need for protection built into the definition of female. Maybe (and that's a still big maybe) it is fair to say that a more masculine person should try to protect a more feminine person. But to slide from that to "a man should always defend a woman" is utterly wrong. That simply does not follow. The only way it can is if you wrongly assume to be female = to be feminine which belies what a deeply sexist person you are and is observably not the case with Saber in FSN.

Quote:
It simply acknowledges that the roles of men and women in how they relate to each other are different. This is merely one of several ways in which their roles are different.


Forcing different roles on people because of their gender, even if they aren't strictly inferior roles...is [expletive] moronic and the very definition of sexist.

Quote:
In short, News Flash: Men and women are not the same. They are not interchangeable. Your gender does define you (at least some aspects of you). You can't separate it from who you are. And that's alright. There's a reason for that.


Can you please make up your mind. Are you "No. It's totally not sexist" apologist guy, or are you "Yeah. It's sexist but that's okay because men and women are different" guy?

[EDIT: Inappropriate and directly insulting comments removed. - Key]
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RedemptionRevenge



Joined: 06 Dec 2012
Posts: 45
PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 8:29 pm Reply with quote
Russ869:

Although we may be getting a little off-topic, let's remember that there is a difference between one's "sex" and one's "gender". These terms are NOT interchangeable. Sex is biological. Your sex is determined by your reproductive system and hormone balances. Gender, on the other hand, is a social construct. Gender does not and should not define you.

Also, I would love to know where you got your information from because,

A) I would love to meet these feminists, who you say support the idea that men should always "protect" women. That is a BRAND NEW type of feminist that I have never heard of in my life. The basic goal of feminists is equality. That idea, in no way, shape, or form, supports that value.

B) You say that it is not sexism because it does not "devalue" a gender. Well, in a way, it does, but, let's also remember that sexism is an attitude. Attitudes, by their very definition, evaluate the positives and negavtives of whatever the topic is about.

Gender roles have always been a touchy and confusing subject for most. I just think you may have got your wires crossed a little.
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ANN_Lynzee
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 9:33 pm Reply with quote
russ869 wrote:
It's been a while since I've seen this show, so maybe Shirou is sexist. I just don't remember having the impression.

But let me be very clear on one thing. The idea that a man should always defend a woman and be willing to die to protect her (even if she is stronger than him and he might have survived had he allowed her to do the fighting) is NOT sexist. Under examination even the staunchest feminists understand it to be a praiseworthy quality.

The point is NOT that, "Fighting is a man's job! Women should never do any fighting." It is that, in general, men have a responsibility to protect women. It is noble and praiseworthy for a man to protect a woman (even if he fails), and it is noble and praiseworthy for a woman to be protected by a man. These are simply intrinsic facts, because they are true definitionally. The very definitions of masculinity and femininity involve (not completely, but primarily) giving and receiving protection respectively.

This is in no way sexist, because it does not in any way devalue either gender. It simply acknowledges that the roles of men and women in how they relate to each other are different. This is merely one of several ways in which their roles are different.

In short, News Flash: Men and women are not the same. They are not interchangeable. Your gender does define you (at least some aspects of you). You can't separate it from who you are. And that's alright. There's a reason for that.


Congratulations, you've offended me!

I consider myself a progressive woman. I also consider myself relatively "feminine," insomuch as I enjoy some "traditional" feminine attributes.

However, none of those traditional attributes involve being the weaker sex that requires protection by someone with external sex organs. I do not require that, I am not less feminine or womanly for not requiring it, nor it is it a defining quality for my sex. You want to know some of the intrinsic "factual" differences between the sexes? I excrete relatively more estrogen than the average male. I can conceive, carry, birth, and provide nutrition for a child, my upper body strength is relatively weaker than a males but my lower body strength is stronger (but this can be changed). My center gravity is lower than yours.

Try again.
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Chagen46



Joined: 27 Jun 2010
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 9:51 pm Reply with quote
russ869 wrote:
It's been a while since I've seen this show, so maybe Shirou is sexist. I just don't remember having the impression.

But let me be very clear on one thing. The idea that a man should always defend a woman and be willing to die to protect her (even if she is stronger than him and he might have survived had he allowed her to do the fighting) is NOT sexist. Under examination even the staunchest feminists understand it to be a praiseworthy quality.

The point is NOT that, "Fighting is a man's job! Women should never do any fighting." It is that, in general, men have a responsibility to protect women. It is noble and praiseworthy for a man to protect a woman (even if he fails), and it is noble and praiseworthy for a woman to be protected by a man. These are simply intrinsic facts, because they are true definitionally. The very definitions of masculinity and femininity involve (not completely, but primarily) giving and receiving protection respectively.

This is in no way sexist, because it does not in any way devalue either gender. It simply acknowledges that the roles of men and women in how they relate to each other are different. This is merely one of several ways in which their roles are different.

In short, News Flash: Men and women are not the same. They are not interchangeable. Your gender does define you (at least some aspects of you). You can't separate it from who you are. And that's alright. There's a reason for that.


Please go back to the Spearhead, I hear they're having a "Bitch about why you're single" day tomorrow.

Or was it Men Going Their Own Way? Your a person I disagree with politically's always seem to blend together...
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Tuor_of_Gondolin



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PostPosted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 11:45 pm Reply with quote
I view "sexist" much like I do "racist".

I am racist. That's because I believe that humanity in general is comprised of races, which, much like the color spectrum, blend in to one another, but are still observable (blue is not red). However, I don't think it *matters*, certainly not on a moral level: you're not a better or worse person due to your race, simply different. If you *do* think that it matters, especially on a moral level, then you are a *bigot*, not a racist. I am not a bigot.

I think that one sex is different from the other sex, which makes me sexist. However, I don't think that one sex is "better" than the other: both have their strengths and weaknesses, and both are important to not only the continuance of our species, but also in creating an enlightened and happy society. And while both sex and race may imply something about an individual, that something could just as easily have nothing to do with either: people are not *necessarily* defined by either sex or race, and doing so blindly is both risky and foolish.

That's how I view things. Some people may think I'm a horrible person as a result. Whatever. Feel free to view me however you want. Free people have that right, and I most certainly support that. However, I don't think I'm a horrible person. I'm just trying to see things accurately in a way that works for me, and this works for me.

As for Shirou (yes, I didn't forget this is actually about F/SN), you eventually find out that one of the main motivators for his hero complex is all the people who died when he lived. When you learn about what is going on beneath that church... Shirou felt that he had a *duty* to those who died to save as many others as he possibly could, regardless of his own life. He internalized that to such a degree that it became how he identified himself. He was wrong (as Archer tried to tell him), but it's not as if how he treated Saber (at first, anyway) was any different than how he felt about people in general (which is clearly shown in the VN, and to a lesser degree in the anime). OTOH, he still was pretty stupid, and his actions later on were pretty chauvenistic... of course, Saber herself had similar issues, but of a slightly different strain.
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Surrender Artist



Joined: 01 May 2011
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 12:32 am Reply with quote
Tuor_of_Gondolin wrote:
I view "sexist" much like I do "racist".


Which is a way that almost nobody else who's graduated from their affluent suburban high school actually does. You might want, "racialist."

Tuor_of_Gondolin wrote:
I am racist.


If you ever find yourself saying something like this, especially with so much ostentatious proclamation of disinterest toward being judged for by others, you might do well to reconsider what motivates your beliefs and their relationship to the society or world around you.

I don't think that you're *horrible*, but you are being pretty lame and obnoxious.


Last edited by Surrender Artist on Thu Feb 14, 2013 12:40 am; edited 1 time in total
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor


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PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 12:39 am Reply with quote
Tuor_of_Gondolin wrote:
I view "sexist" much like I do "racist".


I view "you" much like I do "every other guy on the internet who tries to justify his racist, sexist views with obfuscation and crappy half-baked self-serving logic", so congrats.
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ikillchicken



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PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 1:29 am Reply with quote
Tuor_of_Gondolin wrote:
And while both sex and race may imply something about an individual, that something could just as easily have nothing to do with either: people are not *necessarily* defined by either sex or race, and doing so blindly is both risky and foolish.


I don't know. I don't think it is at all unreasonable to say that some tendencies/qualities/etc are generally more prevalent in one sex or the other. In fact denying this seems quite stubbornly unreasonable to me. And in fact, while a whole lot of what tends to make the sexes different stems from external factors (environment, culture, how one is raised and or treated) I'm not outright opposed to the idea that some things are simply inherently more prevalent in one group or the other.

At the same time though, I feel like we should be wary of this kind of stereotypical thinking. For starters because it tends to pop up based on ulterior, simply bigoted motives (although I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume this isn't the case) but also, simply because it seems a bit dangerous even if one's heart really is in the right place. Even if you try to never jump to conclusions based on generalizations, simply believing in them it makes it very easy to do so anyway and be biased toward your own generalizations. Even if you don't mean to, we all fall victim to confirmation bias. Hence, the safer course of action is to simply put gender based generalizations aside and view people as people.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 3:16 am Reply with quote
Tuor_of_Gondolin, I kind of get what you're saying, but you should realise that almost no-one uses "racist" and "sexist" in the same way you use them. It isn't racist to believe that humanity has different races. It is racist to believe that one race (or one group of races) is superior to all others. Same with sexism. It isn't sexist to say that men are stronger than women. It is sexist to say that men are superior to women and/or that women have to be protected just because they are not physically as strong.

I don't know how or where you got your definitions or the words "racist" and "sexist". But your definitions are not what the vast majority of people consider them to actually be.
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ikillchicken



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PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 4:08 am Reply with quote
dtm42 wrote:
Same with sexism. It isn't sexist to say that men are stronger than women. It is sexist to say that men are superior to women and/or that women have to be protected just because they are not physically as strong.


I think there are two issues here.

Firstly, it's an issue of generalizations. It's fine to say that women are generally not as physically strong as men. It's fair to say that in a lot of (violent) situations, men should protect women for this reason. It becomes sexist when one treats such things as an absolute though. For instance, in a case where the woman is obviously just as strong or stronger than the man but he insists on trying to protect her anyway.

Context is vitally important too. It's very easy, when this issue comes up, to conflate "protecting" in one situation with protecting in all situations. Again, in a violent situation, where physical strength matters, it's by no means unreasonable to say a man should often try to protect a woman. This can often slide into the notion that women need to be protected at all times because they're generally weaker in all situations, physical or otherwise which is obviously wrong. This is especially important because in day to day life, there will rarely be such a situation (hopefully anyway) that necessitates a woman needing protection.

Quote:
I don't know how or where you got your definitions or the words "racist" and "sexist". But your definitions are not what the vast majority of people consider them to actually be.


Agreed. Tuor_of_Gondolin, your point is not unreasonable but it is no surprise that a lot of people will (and have judging by some of the responses) interpret it as such. When you say something like "I'm a racist" people assume right off the bat that you're being an apologist which I actually don't think is the case. You just have a really unorthodox definition of racism that separates it from bigotry.
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Tuor_of_Gondolin



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PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 2:52 pm Reply with quote
ikillchicken wrote:
I don't know. I don't think it is at all unreasonable to say that some tendencies/qualities/etc are generally more prevalent in one sex or the other. In fact denying this seems quite stubbornly unreasonable to me. And in fact, while a whole lot of what tends to make the sexes different stems from external factors (environment, culture, how one is raised and or treated) I'm not outright opposed to the idea that some things are simply inherently more prevalent in one group or the other.

At the same time though, I feel like we should be wary of this kind of stereotypical thinking. For starters because it tends to pop up based on ulterior, simply bigoted motives (although I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume this isn't the case) but also, simply because it seems a bit dangerous even if one's heart really is in the right place. Even if you try to never jump to conclusions based on generalizations, simply believing in them it makes it very easy to do so anyway and be biased toward your own generalizations. Even if you don't mean to, we all fall victim to confirmation bias. Hence, the safer course of action is to simply put gender based generalizations aside and view people as people.

In your first paragraph, I think you showed a fairly good understanding of where I'm coming from.

As to your second paragraph, I *am* wary of that sort of stereotypical thinking. However, I also have to work within my own mental landscape. Whether the differences between sexes are intrinsic or due to external reasons, they do exist, and so need to be taken into account. I think it is just as bad an idea to put too much stock into such things as I do ignoring them altogether, because ignoring them altogether means ignoring the world we actually live in -- or, in my case, the world I actually perceive. In other words, viewing "people as people" would be applying a layer of abstraction to how the world actually works. Yes, there are dangers, and those you've listed are very real ones. But IMO there are dangers (and benefits) to a lot of different ways of thinking. The important part is to recognize those dangers and to try to keep them in mind, which I do try to do.

While I could go on a lot longer on this, I'll just say that I do not regard differences as being intrinsically good or bad. In fact, I dislike it when people try to lump everything into one pot and say, "This is good, and everything else is bad." It's the whole "us=good" and "them=bad" thing. Or to just write off differences as being unimportant or cosmetic: it seems to disrespect the things that make us who we are, as individuals and as groups. Instead, we should recognize and respect those differences, whether they are due to being of a difference sex, racial differences, or personal idiosyncracies.

dtm42 wrote:
Tuor_of_Gondolin, I kind of get what you're saying, but you should realise that almost no-one uses "racist" and "sexist" in the same way you use them. It isn't racist to believe that humanity has different races. It is racist to believe that one race (or one group of races) is superior to all others. Same with sexism. It isn't sexist to say that men are stronger than women. It is sexist to say that men are superior to women and/or that women have to be protected just because they are not physically as strong.

I don't know how or where you got your definitions or the words "racist" and "sexist". But your definitions are not what the vast majority of people consider them to actually be.

Actually, my definition of "racism" is pretty much according to the #1 definition in the dictionary, minus the part about beliving it makes one race inherently better than the other (some dictionaries include that in the definition, and others do not). I just applied the same way of thinking to sexist.

At any rate, it was because I know that the way I use words in my head isn't always the same as their dictionary meanings that I tried to define what I meant by using those words the way I did. Also, using your definitions, I wouldn't consider myself racist or sexist, but I don't think that sufficiently describes my actual viewpoint, so I uh... modified them a little.
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GWOtaku



Joined: 19 Jul 2003
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 5:07 pm Reply with quote
Something critics of Shirou tend to forget is that it turns out that, as strong as his allies clearly are, no (wo)man is an island and his allies really CAN use his help, and frankly I'm a bit distressed at the implication in this thread that it's stupid and even ignoble to sacrifice for others if they don't desperately NEED you to. Which isn't to dismiss the critique of Shirou being so selfless that he doesn't have a strong grasp on his own self-worth, but even in Unlimited Bladeworks a message shines through that there is virtue in Shirou's idealism that's worth holding onto in contrast to Archer's jaded cynicism and resignation.

The good thing about Shirou is he puts himself through hell and becomes someone that can stand alongside those he cares about. Yes, he starts out a wannabee hero. The key thing is that he doesn't stay that way, nor does he accept the idea that he should accept a role on the sidelines and do nothing and give in to the notion that there is nothing he can or should do besides telling Saber what to do.
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