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Aug. 15th, 2020 07:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feotakahariI’ve figured out how to express my issue with Doylism--or at least, with what I think of when I think of Doylism. It’s the equal and opposite of why I got so sick of Danganronpa.
Danganronpa is very self-aware--sometimes overly so. It’s a series about sex and violence, and it expects you to be playing it because you want to see sex and violence. Sometimes it plays along and shows you out-of-nowhere fanservice as a “treat.” Other times, it guilts or mocks you for wanting what it’s offering.
Myself, I picked up Danganronpa because I really, really like Phoenix Wright, and I wanted to play something similar. I wasn’t particularly looking for fanservice or gore, so I just wanted it to shut up and get back to the mystery-solving.
My experience of how Doylism is practiced on sites like Anime Feminist is that it turns that same lens on creators instead of consumers. This character has large breasts? That’s because the creator wanted a large-breasted character, because the creator is a sex pervert. That character dies tragically? The creator must be bigoted about allowing such-and-such a group of people to survive their stories.
Meanwhile, you’ve got creators who have large breasts, or creators who modeled a character on someone they know who has large breasts, and I think there was one who said he built his character around looking like she’d give good hugs.
Now, you can say “I don’t care why the creator did it. I’m sick of all these large-breasted characters everywhere.” Or you can say “large breasts would be a hindrance in the sport this character is supposed to be good at.” Or you can say “how come nobody at all in this setting has small breasts? Small-breasted people exist too.” None of those are precisely Watsonian or Doylist, but they’re closer to Watsonian. They’re criticism of the story and its world, rather than trying to read the author’s mind.
Danganronpa is very self-aware--sometimes overly so. It’s a series about sex and violence, and it expects you to be playing it because you want to see sex and violence. Sometimes it plays along and shows you out-of-nowhere fanservice as a “treat.” Other times, it guilts or mocks you for wanting what it’s offering.
Myself, I picked up Danganronpa because I really, really like Phoenix Wright, and I wanted to play something similar. I wasn’t particularly looking for fanservice or gore, so I just wanted it to shut up and get back to the mystery-solving.
My experience of how Doylism is practiced on sites like Anime Feminist is that it turns that same lens on creators instead of consumers. This character has large breasts? That’s because the creator wanted a large-breasted character, because the creator is a sex pervert. That character dies tragically? The creator must be bigoted about allowing such-and-such a group of people to survive their stories.
Meanwhile, you’ve got creators who have large breasts, or creators who modeled a character on someone they know who has large breasts, and I think there was one who said he built his character around looking like she’d give good hugs.
Now, you can say “I don’t care why the creator did it. I’m sick of all these large-breasted characters everywhere.” Or you can say “large breasts would be a hindrance in the sport this character is supposed to be good at.” Or you can say “how come nobody at all in this setting has small breasts? Small-breasted people exist too.” None of those are precisely Watsonian or Doylist, but they’re closer to Watsonian. They’re criticism of the story and its world, rather than trying to read the author’s mind.
