Yeah her arms are very thin so you can’t make it out but if you rewatch the first second of the video you’ll notice she’s holding the mug.
1 Like
Oh right, I didn’t notice that she was holding the mug.
Physical copy confirmed, but not at launch:
5 Likes
At this point, I’m pretty sure the young leaders represent the video game industry, that don’t care much about adventure games. They never heard of Guybrush and they don’t want to give him money for his adventure.
That’s interesting…
3 Likes
That could be… problematic.
I never had a high opinion of the old Pirate Leaders. Madison and the other two describe them pretty accurately. Also, would they really want to paint the narrative of “two women and a black man replace the three white men, and as a result Mêlée Island is being driven to ruin”? Gosh, no. Maybe they’ll end up being sympathetic or more deeply layered.
This whole thing with Stan having to explain why his shipyard is gone, even though he already had a different reason for it in MI2 and hasn’t associated with the shipyard since… and now Guybrush expects to see the old Pirate Leaders even though they haven’t sat at that table since the beginning of MI1 and have been widely assumed to be pretenders and old news for decades…
I think I need to see what happens in that first ten minutes of RMI.
Maybe is Guybrush drowning, and the game is some sort of alternative reality of life that flashes before his eyes. 
1 Like
Or you know… the gender and ethnicity of the characters is utterly irrelevant? That’s how it ought to be (and I suspect that’s how the developers intended it to be). It’s okay to have three characters who act as antagonists within the narrative and for those same characters to be women or ethnic minorities (within Western society). That doesn’t automatically equate to misogyny or racism. It’s messed up, backwards and condescending to think that all female or black characters in fiction need to be portrayed as shining beacons of hope and goodness. That kind of thinking is how we ended up with the Magical Negro trope within fiction.
I don’t like it when physical attributes define a character or that a character is used solely as a means to make a political statement in regards to the artist’s own political leanings and agenda. It says a lot about the sorry state of modern entertainment when the fact that three key characters in a game are a black man and two white women and it automatically draws assumptions from the audience about there being some kind of underlying political message.
True diversity in art is the day that a character can be any gender or any ethnicity and for those particular physical attributes to be completely irrelevant to the narrative at large and the intent of the author. Not everything has to be a virtue signaling statement, nor should it be. A character ought not to be defined by their gender or ethnicity, but rather by their personality. To make assumptions that a character’s gender or ethnicity automatically equates to there being some kind of political undertone is the very opposite of what true equality is all about.
1 Like
That seems highly improbable. 
Maybe, or maybe there is no hidden message/moral.
2 Likes
They might be deeply layered, yes. I agree.
I remember the Terrible Toybox Twitter stating that it will be « a game that looks at the past but goes towards the future » or something like that.
So maybe the game will try to embrace both point of views, in a positive way.
I think the game will be smart enough to not offend anyone. I trust Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman.
Well, Thimbleweed Park did intentionally offend a public figure.
Please do refresh my memory; which public figure was that?
I apologize, it wasn’t TWP, it was Delores.
In the credits, Donald Trump was insulted.
3 Likes
I think there might be some political undertones, as Ron said on twitter:
Sad when game devs are told to stick to games and not talk politics. We are humans who care, and all games are political at some level.
3 Likes
All I’m saying is… imagine I’m a gamer who hates “wokeness” and something something gamergate something. I hate “affirmative action” in induustry and in narratives, something something.
RMI comes out, and in its story it has the diverse Captain Madison group as clear villains, who take over and ruin things by being extremely arrogant but not very good at their jobs. We, playing as Guybrush, get rid of them and set things right again.
I rush to the internet and praise Ron Gilbert on his expert, anti-woke social commentary.
. . .
Let’s hope not.
I wouldn’t take that comment as meaning that Return to Monkey Island is making some kind of social political message. I think Ron Gilbert is talking in broader terms. At least that’s what I hope. Monkey Island to me personally is all about pure, silly and fun escapism from the horrible realities of life. I don’t want the series to be hijacked in order to receive a lecture from a videogame developer on what the “correct” way of thinking is, in terms of shouting at their audience for not aligning with their own political viewpoints. Even though I may personally agree with and share Ron Gilbert’s political viewpoints, that’s not what Monkey Island is about for me.
3 Likes
I just saw it as the older pirates were pretty useless. Just sat around getting drunk. They haven’t heard of Guybrush so why assume he’s any better? (I personally find it a bit suspect they have no idea who he is considering the whole pox of LeChuck and other stuff that’s happened since. but oh well… maybe this is further in the timeline and people just forgot)
I also think fiction always has meaning, whether it has been thought consciously or not.
As a writer – again, French writer, I don’t write in English, obviously – I always pay attention to these details in my books, and therefore, I try to think how characters or events could be badly interpreted.
I really think Ron and Dave will be smart enough, in their writing, to make a game with a good message.
1 Like
Well, I mean… so what? People interpret art different. You’re never going to change the mind and entire worldview of ignorant bigots with a silly videogame about pirates. Therefore, it’s kinda daft to suggest that a developer ought to bow to the consideration of not affirming their ridiculous worldview. Bigots gonna bigot. All Ron Gilbert should be concerned about is making the best damn game that he can make. The thought that any videogame developer should have to second guess every single creative decision they make out of fear of upsetting or reaffirming the wrong social political crowd is such a hideous, dystopian concept of creativity for me, that I don’t even care to contemplate it.
Having said that, I do understand where you are coming from, as there was a shot in Game of Thrones where Emilia Clarke (an extremely Aryan looking lady) was surrounding by a tribe of black men and said tribe were all bowed on their knees worshiping her as their saviour. I saw that scene and just said “Jesus fucking Christ, did the writers and director not for one second consider the implications of this scene?”, but ultimately I also acknowledged that the creatives behind the show likely never intended for the scene to be interpreted that way.
Still, I think there’s a world of difference between the wooden actress from Terminator: Genysis being hailed as the best thing since sliced bread by a tribe of black men and a new Monkey Island game having three pirate leaders being portrayed as a black man and two white women. There’s something intrinsically distasteful (given the history of racism) about the former, whereas the latter is pretty darn innocuous, all things considered.
I think it’s less about upsetting people and more about making the message clear.
I however don’t think we can say much about it right now because we barely know anything about the story and what it’s trying to achieve.
I’m sure we’ll be able to have a deeper conversation about it when we’ll finish the game.
3 Likes
The ethnic background to characters has never mattered before to Monkey Island. Possible exception being the Voodoo Lady because the whole Vudu thing coming from Africa. I highly doubt any normal, sane person is going to read anything into the ethnicity or genders of the new characters.
2 Likes
Yeah, but what message? It’s a complete assumption that there is any kind of social political message. That’s what annoys me. Why can’t a few characters be female or black without there being some kind of message, or the presumption that there’s a social political message? I’m sick of it. The far left are as bad as the far right. Two sides of the same shitty coin. Y’all, both sides, judge people by their ethnicity and gender. It’s the opposite of equality.
I’m done now, but god damn, is it frustrating. Not even a new Monkey Island game can escape from being dragged through the ringer of “oooohhhhh, it’s making controversial political statements”, before it’s even released and based upon nothing more than the gender and ethnicity of a few characters during a 30 second clip. Y’all are crazy.
(just for the record, before anyone starts accusing me of being some kind of neo-nazi proud boy (as is usually the case when one dares to be critical towards anyone on the far left end of the political spectrum), I’m a left leaning centrist; you know, someone who has an actual balanced (yet liberal) opinion upon political matters, as opposed to being an extremist reactionary, like the far left and far right are)
3 Likes