Around the community there has been a murmur of discontent about the portrayal of Lei-Shen's twin consorts. These two are the only female mogu in existence - created by Lei Shen himself.
The Twin Consorts of Lei Shen, Lu’Lin and Suen, are said to be greatest of the Thunder King’s treasures. Rumoured to be the only known female mogu in existence, Lei Shen keeps his trophies close, and their combined arsenal against interlopers closer.
If you would like to read some posts highlighting why these models are just wrong, check out Nyxrinne of Touch of Death, who has an eloquent post on it: Mogu did it: possession of the Thunder King. Her dry and engaging wit was evident in the introduction of her post:
How to dig yourself deeper into a hole in three simple steps:
- Create a vibrant world with a wide range of characters, only to introduce new species with each expansion that come only in the default (male) gender.
- Create a female model for one of these races post-launch. Make it hypersexualised, and limit its appearance to one boss fight. Be sure to give it a name that describes it in terms of its relationship with a male character.
- Release a blog post in which all other bosses are discussed in terms of fight mechanics and design team influences with jokes ahoy. In the section about this new Female Fight, neglect to do this, and instead neatly justify step two with a design team within a design team. Be sure to put extra emphasis on women as trophies for bonus depth.
- Nyxrinne, Mogu Did it (27 Feb 2013)
It wasn't long before my favourite feminist, Apple Cider Mage, responded as well. People might see her views as aggressively pro-female, but actually, ACM is merely fighting against the stereotype, the ingrained culture that we perpetuate by the little things in life and in game. Her post was in two parts - Part I dealt more with how female Mogu seemed to be tacked on as an afterthought - and had to be a sexualised afterthought at that. In Part II, she is responding to the use of specific words in an interview describing women ("treasures", "possessions", "trophies"), which seem to highlight that the gaming industry is still male dominated - and perhaps, as it is a fantasy game, this is probably what male gamers fantasise ABOUT.
Perhaps they are right, and these sexy female Mogu really should have no place in the raid as raid bosses - why do Mogu need females anyway? They don't procreate. And surely there is nothing wrong with GAY Mogu if they need to have some sort of needs met. If Mogu do experience carnal love, then they also have, other than each other, oh and their Quilien....I suspect the model choice is less a reflection of Lei Shen’s ideals and more the developers still.- Apple Cider Mage, The Problem With Twins Part II (28 Feb 2013)
Well, I'm Australian. And I'm going to do what Aussies do - and that's take the piss out of these Twin Consorts.
So let's see how Blizz could make this fight even MORE wrong and cause a general uproar.
Abilities
As the twins are based on a sun moon theme, I'll make a darkness and light phase..
Suen
- Suen appears only during the sun phase
- She has an ability, Flutter Eyelashes, which incapacitates all male raid members facing her for 5 seconds.
- Flames of Passion (OMG, she actually DOES have an ability with this name in the real fight!) is a conflag type ability with an AOE effect of 10 yards.
- Quotes:
"I'll see you Suen!"
"You will not stop the Thunder King, the light of my life!"
- Lu'lin appears only during the moon phase
- Her ability, Wardrobe Malfunction, causes all male raid members to be paralysed until female raid members picks up the fallen item and throw it back against her, covering her exposed female parts.
- Every 30 seconds she will cast PMS, a 30 yard knockback ability that silences you for 3 seconds.
- Quotes:
"Don't piss me off! This is my moon phase!"
"My King! Save us!"
Or... perhaps we could have them CHAINED to the Thunder king's lightning pillars, perhaps, each one wearing a school uniform and pigtails.
Or... brandishing rolling pins and saucepans as they fought us barefooted and wearing aprons.
Back to seriousness now...
As Cynwise apparently said, if these two were meant to be bodyguards, then they should dress like bodyguards. No bodyguard, even with skin of stone REALLY needs to go around showing so much ... skin, if you will... for arrows to penetrate. Unless of course, their object is to SEDUCE the raid attacking them.
But can you really blame the designers of Blizzard? If you looked at a number of actual female players out there (not males playing female characters), playing female characters, what do you think they are wearing as their transmog? Are they wearing armor and robes covering them from head to toe to prevent exposure to flames/ice/blades? Or are they wearing cleavage enhancing, leg baring, midriff exposing gear?
They want to look beautiful. They want to be sexy. And it's a fantasy game - can you blame them? When the developers look at that, what do they think we want to see? And I bet they're all boys - and you know how dumb boys can be.
OK, so the twins are possessions. They are owned, like dogs, like Quilien. But, remember, that this is a story. Just as in real life we know that your'e not supposed to be going around casting pyroblast at people or heroic striking them just because we can, we know that women are not possessions. People stand up against these injustices every day. That kind of behaviour is not tolerated in normal society - well not MY normal society. It is that we RECOGNISE and ACKNOWLEDGE that these things are not the normal that keeps the fantasy from bleeding into reality. Also, this is the villain. He's supposed to be doing bad things. This is bad. Bad guys keep slave girls. Good guys don't.
This is the thing - we can't have the same story every time. How boring would the story be! We will see suffering. We will see injustice. But we should also see the heroism, the fairness, the struggle, the battles, the conquests and the defeats. And we do and that is what makes a great story. If everything was perfect, nobody would want to read it. Or play it.