By the way, Guybrush isn’t simply a jerk, but in my opinion he’s inevitably a jerk, because in the first two games he acts as the classic archetype of the protagonist who has to fulfill his destiny.
It’s like Macbeth and the prophecy made by the witches: his ambition is so strong that he can’t avoid to do what the witches foresaw. It’s even debatable if Guybrush has the freedom to choose another path or if he, like the characters in TWP, is programmed to follow predefined steps…
…which leads us to the ending of RtMI, that was predicted by the voodoo lady thirty years ago:
“What you will find out about yourself and your world. It will terrify you.”
Yes, it’s possible that TWP was a MI3a in disguise, by a creator who didn’t think that he could get another occasion to properly end his personal Monkey Island story and journey.
That’s sort of why I’m not too caught up on “we’ve been waiting 32 years” or “Monkey Island 3a” or “the true Secret as it was meant”. I’ve seen too many interviews and comments from Ron that the secret would seem dumb to people nowadays, or the earlier designer docs as explaining the mystery as things we’ve already discovered in the games. Stack upon that the treasure of Big Whoop being conflated with the Secret of Monkey Island sometimes, and sometimes not.
Return will probably be a fantastic game, especially for people who like Ron’s other work. But he’s said pretty often that it’s not the game he would have made in 1992.
About free will… do you think that RtMI will have alternative paths/endings, like Ransome had in TWP, or do you think that it would be too uncharacteristic for a Monkey Island game?
I’m very curious to see game articles and various fan reactions after release. People like myself have been obsessing over art style, but I don’t think that’s what’s going to make or break the game. And also: I don’t think anything that makes or breaks the game is necessarily what makes Ron happy or sad.
Example: Ron was bothered that people referred to Thimbleweed Park as a throwback game, even if they were pleased with it.
Fast forward to today - and look at all the people who are positively ecstatic to see Guybrush on the Mêlée Island docks with almost exactly the same geography as they had in Secret. I’ve seen comments of people demeaning Escape in comparison, because its version of Mêlée was too different.
The game has “Return” in its title. But if articles come out praising Return as a nostalgic throwback to 1990, filled with familiar characters and also our two favorite islands*, is that the kind of praise Ron even wants?
*(I’m joking about “two favorite islands”. Monkey Island probably doesn’t hit most people’s top three.)
Fast forward to today - and look at all the people who are positively ecstatic to see Guybrush on the Mêlée Island docks with almost exactly the same geography as they had in Secret. I’ve seen comments of people demeaning Escape in comparison, because its version of Mêlée was too different.
Meh, personally speaking I don’t like that we’re returning to Mêlée Island in the new game. I would have much preferred all the islands to be original (with the possible exception of Monkey Island itself). Having said that, it is nice to see the geography of Mêlée Island be correct because it was too different in Escape From Monkey Island. The Scumm Bar/Lua Bar magically teleported and it was irksome.
Is it offensive, or we are told it must be considered so? I don’t hate the concept of politically correct. I hate what american rules of politically correct have done, transforming any conversation in a mined field, and any innuendo in a wiggly periphrasis.
Would the gag in which Guybrush discovers that Largo wears feminine underwear be considered offensive too, today? Probably yes. But the application of today’s “rules” would have prived us of the wonderful wit of the Monty Phyton, too. Not to mention the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and everything that we can consider “camp” today. Those rules are trying to determine exactly how you should refer to and depict LGBT+ people (and the fact that you have to add a new letter every 6 months in order not to be offensive is unbelievable), and I find exactly this excess of regulation the true offense.
I know many people who are omophobic, xenophobic, whateverphobic. And respecting those rules in public but being themselves in their echo chamber does not make them better people, nor it makes the world a better place.
It is certainly not limited to America. The really alarming thing is that the governments also tell us what to consider right-wing. Basically everything with a different opinion than the government is called that nowadays.
That said, LGBT awareness is of course a good thing, but that should certainly not define what to be considered political correct in fictional works.
I actually think the « Guybrush wears a dress » joke aged pretty well. Guybrush is never mocked for doing so, quite the contrary, people thinks he looks good with it. Even Guybrush says that it’s a beautiful dress.
I don’t know if it was intended to be taken as if at the time, but I think it succeeds to be funny and cute. Scarfhulu, a YouTuber, actually thinks the same thing – he did a retrospective on MI2.
The Largo’s bra joke is not as clear.
The « oh, the ship is pink, that’s ridiculous » in MI4 is more of an issue for me, for example. Also, I honestly don’t like this game overall, so that doesn’t help.
I think in Escape it’s more just Guybrush doesn’t like it being pink because well… Imagine rocking up to an island or another pirate ship with a pink ship? He’d hardly look fearsome lol
Scarfulhu’s video was actually an example I was thinking of where someone liked the Guybrush dress joke, but didn’t like the Largo bra joke.
It’s just funny to me because neither situation dwelled or ridiculed it more than the other. (When you tell Guybrush to use the bra, he says, “It’s not my size.”) But listening to Scarfulhu, it seems his opinion was shaped toward Largo being a villain and Guybrush being a hero. If that’s the line for something being problemstic, then I feel like the line got drawn wrong.
