Night in the Woods, Part Three

[rynling]

Here’s another bit of the Polygon review of Night in the Woods that caused me physical pain:

[Mae] is often selfish, cruel, self-absorbed and destructive in ways that may be believable and relatable but rarely ever pleasant. Mae is somewhat redeemed by a childlike joy in simple pleasures, a streak of loyalty to her friends and some late-game realizations about her own failings, but only somewhat.
 

Mae is a good protagonist because she’s flawed, and she’s a good person because she’s genuinely trying to be sensitive and understanding for the sake of her friends and family. She’s not perfect, but she’s doing her best, and the same can be said of the way most of the other characters in the game treat her. Some people lose their tempers with Mae when she accidentally says something stupid, and some people are mean to her for no reason, but she’s good-natured about it and doesn’t get into fights or try to hurt people to get back at them. She goes out of her way to speak to everyone without prejudice, and she’s extremely generous with her time. She’s good-natured and, yes, she’s loyal and cares about other people, even when she’s hurt. This is why people want to be friends with her.

The fact that an adult man would look at this twenty-year-old female character and say that he doesn’t like her because she’s not performing enough emotional labor is really scary to me, to be honest.

It’s also troubling that Polygon wanted someone to review a story game about a twenty-year-old queer woman and couldn’t find anyone except an older man with children. They didn't know any women? Any queer people? Not even any younger people? This writer openly admits that he didn’t want to review this game. Could the editors at Polygon really not find anyone in even a slightly different demographic?

And listen, I wasn’t going to include the actual name of the reviewer, but it’s Justin McElroy. I know people love The Adventure Zone a whole lot, but I have to admit that I’ve never found the McElroy brothers as charming and funny as most people seem to think they are.

Comments

[runicmagitek]

I want to punch things whenever I see people praising the McElroy brothers, because same. I don't find them charming or funny, either. Like not even a little bit. And I've stayed away from TAZ because of that. So fucking shocker this review was written by one of them.

Also, real talk, he starts off the review with how he didn't want to do it???? Are you fucking kidding me???? I don't know, that's called a job. There are plenty of things at work I don't want to do, but people throw money at me to do it, so I do it. Wow, must be fucking amazing to just be all, "yeah, I review games, but uuuuugh don't make me review that one." Maybe just do your job? Maybe don't bitch about it? Or maybe, if this is a serious enough issue, don't have someone review that game who is being a complete manbaby about it and then maybe FIRE THEM????

Sigh.

Anyhow, I finished playing Night in the Woods yesterday and I already want to replay it. I have a lot of thoughts on it and I'll probably be making my own post about it, but tl;dr - Mae is amazing and I related with her way more than I expected to. Minus the demonic cult and eldritch beings, this could have been a pseudo-biography about my life. And it's unfortunate that someone who had the case of the "don't wannas" just missed the damn point.