But that was valid for Guybrush in Monkey Island 2 too, IMHO. As I’m with @Guga regarding the character development, I’m really curious how Guybrush will be in RtMI.
“Guybrush Threepwood has been transformed from the gee-whiz innocent of the first game to a bit of a raging asshole”
Interesting review, but how innocent can you really be if you want to become a pirate? Hehe…
Stealing a guy’s monocle makes you an asshole, but sinking and plundering unarmed merchant ships is okay and innocent?
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One joke I noticed this during my latest play-through was the Mardi Gras costume, i.e. Guybrush having to wear a pink dress.
Luckily the game isn’t too in-your-face about it, it could have aged a lot worse. But still a joke I felt you wouldn’t do today.
Basically the joke is “Ohhh, Guybrush has to wear a girl’s dress, haha. How emberassing.” (even if that is not said out loudly in the game, IIRC).
With the grown awareness about LGBT+ issues today (and the grown transphobia and right-wing outrage against LGBT+), the joke wouldn’t “work” anymore today, and just be offensive. (And it also didn’t “work” back in the day, but mainstream society just was not aware of the hurt it might have caused).
Nothing wrong or funny about wearing girl’s clothes (not even if your name is literally GUYbrush. ) or doing things that don’t match traditional gender roles.
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I don’t think you’re imagining it; Knights and Bikes uses a similar scrapbook style and probably has deeper themes as well. (I say probably, because I still can’t watch a full playthrough of it.)
I’ve never thought this:
To me Guybrush is just looking silly/goofy in a dress. That’s the joke. So I can’t understand why this joke should be offensive and to me it still works.
But it would be interesting to hear the opinion of some members of the LGBT+ community.
Also, I find the midget joke much more offensive.
That the dress joke should attract so much rage, I don’t understand…
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Also Largo’s bra. It’s funny when I hear some reviewers are okay with one joke but uncomfortable with the other, when Guybrush’s dress and Largo’s bra are essentially very similar “haha women’s clothes” jokes.
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Thinking about it, the probably worst thing in the Monkey Island games is that “love bomb” that Wally orders from the voodoo lady. This one is super creepy. Basically a spell that makes someone love you / have sex with you without free will and consent.
Plus I feel like it’s also a joke on Wally’s attractiveness. I.e. an “unmanly” guy like Wally is not attractive enough to get a girl, so he is reduced to use a voodoo spell to be able to “score”.
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But he is a raging asshole. It’s basically him trying to act like a tough pirate and sometimes it’s more disturbing than funny. It’s a pretty dark game. I think it’s pretty good overall but it’s the constant harping on about monkey wrenches I profoundly disagree with. Saying you dislike the game because Guybrush is an asshole strikes me as orders of magnitude more valid. Being mean to Wally never sat right with me, but that’s actually its beauty. It holds up a lens against your own behavior passively letting bullies bully sometimes without interfering out of fear it might be you instead. MI2 makes you uneasily complicit.
Space Quest 4 had a thing where Roger Wilco had to dress up as a woman, and it came out the same year as MI2… must have been a popular gag for '91.
Wally/monocle and Stan/coffin are similar puzzles. In both, it’s true Guybrush is an asshole, but it’s beside the point. Stan’s puzzle is one of the greatest puzzles of all time, and Wally is a pretty good one too. That’s primary. It’s not a novel…
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I may have mentioned it here before, but I enjoy looking at MI2’s Guybrush as a character trapped inside The Cave.
Narrator: “Oh good, our intrepid hero seems to have found a Love Bomb! That’s bound to win over his reluctant lady love, in a way that makes everyone feel totally comfortable. But seriously, I wouldn’t worry about her. I think this pirate’s only true love… is that treasure.”
Yes, some people lamented Guybrush’s jerkiness, but were those critiques framed into a politically incorrectness context? (sorry, I can’t watch the video right now)
Oh yes, that’s an additional reason why I perceive a “continuation” between MI2 and RtMI.
I mean, it’s not just bells and whistles with sprinkles on top of it, it’s Ron’s Monkey Island. Happy endings are not guaranteed.
Another perspective is that it would have been considered humorously silly for a pirate in 1687. Anachronistic and uncharacteristic, for a culture that didn’t develop that respect that has grown in recent times.
Hmm… I’ll have a look at it.
About Guybrush being a jerk: that’s who he is. He’s defined by his first words: “I want to be a pirate”, and that’s the most important goal for him in MI2, no matter what.
Not even Elaine mattered to him anymore, he just wanted the piece of the map. Things change and I’m curious to see how their relationship has evolved in the meantime.
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Check out this kotaku review: Knights And Bikes: The Kotaku Review
It oozes with MI2 feel and got me super hyped when MI6 was first announced, before my prejudices had more strongly cemented.
Its two young characters aren’t immune to the grim reality that swirls around their fantasy of heroes and monsters. It celebrates childhood without stumbling into nostalgia, and it’s earnestly fun while still examining all the ways children deal with the big, often scary world around them.
The treasure is guarded by monsters you have to fight using your abilities, though whether the enemies are real or just in the girls’ imagination is unclear.
It grows less and less clear whether the treasure and the girls’ adventures are actually real,
takes an end-game twist that blurs the line between reality and fantasy even more.
Yes, that’s the kind of surreal/ambiguous storytelling that Ron would like.
Not my cup of tea, I’m afraid, but it seems a well received game.
the jerk argument is from the Antiquarian, whereas the politically incorrect argument is from Troels (in that video he’s rather controlled, but I seem to remember him being really enraged about it in some other video or podcast)
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How unexpected (at least from my point of view). I’ll definitely have a look at it.
As I said I interpret Guybrush’ assholery as a strength of the game in terms of story-telling, prompting unease and self-evaluation on the part of the player. But that’s exactly why it’s like a novel. Worse games/novels/movies don’t do that.
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It’s 15 seconds starting at 30:01. I don’t remember in what other podcast or video he ranted about it…
Somewhat relatedly, I remember similar (but bigger) complaints about Simon the Sorcerer 2: Saoirse Dunbar, host of the Adventure Games Podcast (of which I’m a patron), recently said in that game “Simon is such an asshole I wish he would die”
EDIT: I didn’t mean this as a reply to LowLevel. Sorry.
Political correctedness is a funny thing. The “love bomb” concept is horrifying to some of us now, but it was as mainstream as Harry Potter in the 90s. Or was it the 2000s? Love potions just happened in magic stories sometimes.
Maybe Largo’s bra or Guybrush’s pink dress haven’t aged as elegantly as they could have, but how do they compare to Escape’s “Guybrush hates pink things because pink isn’t manly” in 2000?
I rewatched Escape recently, and actually felt a bit uncomfortable with Brittany the bank teller who was looking for opportunities to advance her career by sleeping around (a joke that was also in the Toy Story 2 credits, which is removed from the Disney+ version). Before #metoo hit public conscience, I think this sort of situation was seen as comparable to bribery, where the giver trying to advance her career and the receiver taking advantage were seen as equally at fault.