^ C’mon, BV—the argument may have become a little repetitive, but it’s gotten back on-topic, using specific evidence from the text, and is only barely testy (so far) around the edges. Gotta keep the criteria consistent.
Actually, the argument has been progressing... and, after reading the last posts, I think we have now the core of the problem in sight. It's like this: some people just can't stand the idea that, in our world, certain individuals are considered more beautiful or attractive than others. It goes against political correctness, and for these people the mere idea of challenging political correctness is absolutely insufferable. A social warrior makes their holy duty to fight the demons of "lookism" and "objectification" wherever they find them, never mind the context, never mind reality, never mind how ridiculous or absurd this moralizing seems.
White Rose, I want to thank you for your summary. Tbh I didn't read BugDevil's huge wall of text, I just scrolled down until it was over and thought to myself that I would return later to post a tl;dr if there were no further comments. You see, the way I saw things, there was no need for BugDevil to write anything lengthy in reply to my message. All I did was point out her mistakes and correct her in all the parts she had gotten wrong. The way I saw things, this needed no long answer, just a few words of thanks for setting her straight. So when I found this humongous wall of text of hers sitting in the thread and posing as a reply I immediately guessed (and it turns out I was right) that she was annoyed rather than grateful for my rightings and had decided to bombard me with random blah in retaliation. And I didn't feel like going through something like that. And now that I have read your summary and know exactly what I missed, I can sigh in relief and tell to myself: "Boy, was I right!"
Political correctness is a plague when talking about manga or old dime novels or anything that exists outside of the boundaries of modern censored talk. Any social warrior wannabe will take up arms as soon as they hear that someone, somewhere, has created or is creating works of fiction where the pc dogma is not respected. Romantic fantasies written by and for girls have naturally assumed for the last two centuries that the most desirable mates are the ones who tower over the common folk in terms of looks, or wealth, or influence, or any of a half dozen other qualities perceived as alpha attributes. But if you tell this to a pc crusader, they will start frothing at the mouth and crying at the wrongness of it all. And then go on a rant on how we are all equally beautiful, lookism is bad, alphaism is bad, and how dare you objectify human beings according to their appearance when the really important things are inside, and anyone can be whatever they want, blah blah blah. Not only this sort of tripe doesn't hold water in the real world, but, even if you take it as only a theory on how an ideal utopian world would or should work, it's utterly pointless to invoke it when it comes to fiction and fantasy. Take your pc doctrine and go try to change the world if you want to, pal, but don't mess with books and comics and games and other works of fiction! Otherwise, we can only conclude that you're unable to tell fantasy from reality.
You're most likely right, Rose, about how to deal with these inconveniences: time is valuable, don't waste it on people who don't want to listen.
last edited at May 23, 2019 6:06PM