Topic: The more I think about it...

[Mashiro]

I just find it amazing people get disturbed by this, it's bewildering to me when we are clearly inflicting harm in many other ways to these mascots.

Just seems very weird that this ONE move is like "aw man that's just wrong, that's stepping over the line!". It's not as if he's blowing Mario's brains out and pissing on his corpse =/

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: Mashiro
I just find it amazing people get disturbed by this, it's bewildering to me when we are clearly inflicting harm in many other ways to these mascots.

Just seems very weird that this ONE move is like "aw man that's just wrong, that's stepping over the line!". It's not as if he's blowing Mario's brains out and pissing on his corpse =/

There's a huge difference between "comic mischief" and "realistic violence", and the ESRB even has classifications just for this sort of distinction.

Everything you listed falls under comic because it's portrayed non-realistically and the character's reactions are likewise comic.

In this case, Snake is visibly breaking Mario's neck. Something like that has NEVER been regarded as "comic". All of the aforementioned can be found in various cartoons from years ago, but I guarantee you'll never find a scene of Sylvester snappy Tweety's neck.

It's no longer "comic" because it doesn't leave the character in a questionable condition: Mario should be dead, and even if he gets up moments later, I still find it unsettling and out of place.

[NWR_pap64]

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Originally posted by: Mashiro
I just find it amazing people get disturbed by this, it's bewildering to me when we are clearly inflicting harm in many other ways to these mascots.

Just seems very weird that this ONE move is like "aw man that's just wrong, that's stepping over the line!". It's not as if he's blowing Mario's brains out and pissing on his corpse =/

There's a BIG difference, though. The violence you mentioned earlier is basically fantasy and cartoony violence, meaning that kids can't imitate it because its completely unrealistic.

Its basically the Looney Tunes principle. The cartoons are just as violent, or even more, than some adult programming. Yet they get criticized less because its all unrealistic and in no way imitable. Kids know that if you drop a piano or an anvil on a person they will die, not become short and go up and down like an accordion.

SSB follows the same principle. Even if the characters get hurt by bombs, swords, lasers and other fantasy weapons is all very cartoony. Hell, even the "smashed" animation is ripped out of many a cliched anime. The original SSB even featured extremely cartoony versions of the Nintendo characters.

Snake, on the other hand, uses a move that is proven to be dangerous and lethal and CAN be imitated. Before you say anything, I've seen kids choke other kids so the move is not exactly out of their reach. The move is quite graphic and detailed, so again its very weird a move made it to the game.

[Mashiro]

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meaning that kids can't imitate it because its completely unrealistic.

Yeah I'm sorry, kids definitely can't pick up sharp objects and cut themselves. I forgot that swords don't exist in reality, my bad.

There are moves the can be imitated INCLUDED the whole, you know, violent act of BEATING THE CRAP out of each other. Oh but kids won't punch or kick each other I'm sorry. Continually beating the living sh*t out of someone definitely isn't lethal you're right!

Oh I'm sorry that's right, it's comic so it's ok.

Isn't Mario getting up afterward the same as being comic? I think it is.

The tired argument of Looney Tunes is hypocritical to me as is because honestly, many of those comic antics can be imitated by children.

Talk about hypocrisy.  

Edit: I am also fairly certain MANY kids have baseball bats, but I guess they could never smash one of their friends in the face with it . . . I mean that's just unthinkable since it's comic mischief!  

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: Mashiro The tired argument of Looney Tunes is hypocritical to me as is because honestly, many of those comic antics can be imitated by children.

Talk about hypocrisy.

I'm not arguing this "for the children", though if I was a parent I'd have to point out to my kids that what Snake is doing in particular is wrong.

The neck snap bothers me because it's a not comic mischief. There's a reason SSB was based around the idea of characters knocking each other off the screen instead of killing each other.

In typical SSB battles, characters are knocked away, beaten, jabbed with swords, lit on fire and have clear expressions of pain on their faces, true.

But the Snake snap introduces something else to the equation...



It's the fact that characters are being restrained while an execution is being performed on them which irks me. Notice how Mario's arms flail out as Snake braces and actually performs the maneuver?

This is literally the kind of sh*t anti-Nintendo fanboys are notorious for using in their flash animations. I'm frankly surprised that there isn't more of a backlash by the Nintendo community about this.

If Snake can perform a neck break, why not allow Bowser to crush the heads of other characters in his jaws, or make it so DK can use his brute strength to snap spines and bend other characters in half?

Even if they get back up after a moment, it doesn't matter because it's still not in the spirit of the game. A neck-break isn't comedic violence. If you're going to argue that it doesn't matter, then why not have blood? No matter how much Mario bleeds, it never seems to affect him, so why not have it in the game? Why not fatalities? If DK can pull the head clean off his opponents, it shouldn't matter if they just come floating down whole again on a platform a moment later, right?

I don't care if you disagree. An execution is out of place for a SSB game.

[Mashiro]

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I don't care if you disagree. An execution is out of place for a SSB game.

And I don't care how much you think it's out of place for a SSB game. I think it's fine.

As for blood, I wouldn't care if blood was in the game.

I'll bow out of this discussion, I've said my peace.

Over analyze a clip that it being slowed down dramatically all you wish and lament over it.

[Smash_Brother]

We'll just have to disagree on it, then.

[Strell]

I have the solution, ok?

Kick out Snake and replace him with Alan Rickman.

Because then you wouldn't be able to snap his neck, you'd only be able to snape it.

Which is something I'd very much like to see, namely because I have no idea what that entails.

There, I just solved your entire problem, babies.






Oh a real note, I can somewhat understand the neck breaking to be a little...out of place.  Others have pointed out that "well there are swords and bombs and mythical creatures who also have swords in the game, and those would hurt people in real life."

Yeah, but there is some measurable disconnect between the two.  I don't think anyone is going to fight a giant monkey in real life, especially not one wearing a tie.  There's no blue haired swordsmen running around either (save for cosplay nerds, who do not count), and a wealth of the other things in Smash are clearly in the "cartoony violence" category.

However, a realistic (despite how tight his ass might be) human character snapping another character's neck?  That's something you could see in real life and be grossed out by it.  I realize the same goes for guns and bombs and such, but this is something you have a higher chance of seeing actually happen, and theoretically could happen almost anywhere and at anytime.  

So I can see why it might be a little gruesome, considering the game itself is meant to be so over-the-top with comedic-based slapstick.  It's kind of like that art by that one (horribly unsettling) guy that draws Mario with super muscles, gross sweat-ridden hair, and stomping on a Goomba, complete with his innards spilling out.  It's that kind of abruptness that sort of throws you into a state of "wtf?" for a second.

This also might hearken back to when the 64 version came out in the USA, and all the "realistic hitting" sounds were replaced with bowling-a-strike sounds.  I doubt that something like that is residual enough to remain in the discussion, but I did want to point it out.

[vudu]

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Originally posted by: Smash_Brother
If Snake can perform a neck break, why not allow Bowser to crush the heads of other characters in his jaws, or make it so DK can use his brute strength to snap spines and bend other characters in half?

Because neither character performs such a move in their own games.  It would be completely out of character for Donkey Kong to snap someone's spine.  

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: Strell
Because then you wouldn't be able to snap his neck, you'd only be able to snape it.

(save for cosplay nerds, who do not count)

These both made me LOL.

Your points are very much along the lines of what I mean.

People can be beaten, lit on fire, hit with a bat, etc. and yet these are not necessarily lethal: you can put the fire out, recover from the injuries, etc.

But there's no middle ground in a neck-snap. If your neck is broken, you're generally dead. Everyone Snake uses the move on in MGS is certainly dead, and Snake even exhibits his normal behavior after using the maneuver by lowering the corpse to the ground.

SSB is about comedic violence, and even if Mario jumps back on his feet a second later and smashes Snake off the stage, it doesn't change the fact that he was basically just executed.

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It would be completely out of character for Donkey Kong to snap someone's spine.

Just like it's completely out of character for Mario to be in a game where his neck can be broken.

[LuigiHann]

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Originally posted by: Smash_Brother

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It would be completely out of character for Donkey Kong to snap someone's spine.

Just like it's completely out of character for Mario to be in a game where his neck can be broken.

...

That's not how that phrase works. "Out of character" refers to things that the characters do, like, in the active voice.  

[Bill Aurion]

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Originally posted by: Mashiro
As for blood, I wouldn't care if blood was in the game.

THAT I will disagree with, because Smash Brothers has always been about a humble competition between mascots (the losers clapping for the winner at the end of every match, for example)...

[Strell]

Except Ice Climbers.

They are poor losers and end up crying.

Punk b*tches.

[Mikintosh]

I'm just gonna quote myself from the update thread, since I don't feel like paraphrasing:

"I thought that too from from the initial pictures, but in motion I think the move looks different; it now just looks like Snake's "disabling" somebody, which is probably enough to get past the ESRB
...
"Well, I know it's still the same attack; I'm saying that the way it's animated, it just looks like he's choking him...very violently. If you're not familiar with the concept of breaking peoples' necks in such a manner, then the animation (not a selected screenshot) doesn't provide many details and makes it broad enough so it looks like it'd do what it actually does in-game: knock an opponent for a few seconds. If you are familiar...then you should know better not to try. This ain't wrestling, where all their moves are perfectly clear and quite easy to imitate."

And can you guys stop putting up the slowed-down GIF file as representational of how it looks like in game? It doesn't looks as bad in the original video because it goes faster; if you saw a video of a guy getting punched in slow-motion, that'd look worse too.

[Mashiro]

Just to clarify Bill, I wasn't saying blood should be in the game, just the from a personal stand point I wouldn't care if it was in the game that's all. The game is fine as is with how the violence is shown.

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: LuigiHann
That's not how that phrase works. "Out of character" refers to things that the characters do, like, in the active voice.

Mario's "character" is dictated not only by his personal actions but also by the game environment in which he's placed.

Leon S. Kennedy, for example, is no stranger to having his neck snapped, throat slit, etc.

Mario's games have never placed him in a situation where his spine is severed. The relevance in this case is not that Snake breaks people's necks but that Mario has never had his neck broken (at least certainly not in a Nintendo-made game) and that Mario's neck being broken is about as appropriate as him shooting a hooker since both situations involve Mario in a "mature" interaction. You're performing an M-rated move on an E-rated character.

But beyond ratings, I don't think it's right for Mario, Link, Ike, Samus, etc. to be having a move like that performed on them.

It's no more appropriate than if, say, Family Guy's Quagmire was placed in the game and had a move called "mount". It doesn't matter if it's appropriate for his character if it's fundamentally wrong for his victim.

[Crimm]

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Originally posted by: Smash_Brother
It's no more appropriate than if, say, Family Guy's Quagmire was placed in the game...

I just threw up.

[ThePerm]

gigity gigity

[ThePerm]

If you jumped into a lava pit you would die pretty much instantly, if Mario falls in he bounces like a loony tune.

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: ThePerm
If you jumped into a lava pit you would die pretty much instantly, if Mario falls in he bounces like a loony tune.

Yes, hence why they don't show Mario's flesh searing off his body as he burns in agony.

And for the record, I hated how Bowser was burned alive in the lava bit at the beginning of NSMB.

[Mashiro]

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And can you guys stop putting up the slowed-down GIF file as representational of how it looks like in game? It doesn't looks as bad in the original video because it goes faster; if you saw a video of a guy getting punched in slow-motion, that'd look worse too.

Mikintosh I think hits on a very relevant point . . . I went back and watched the video multiple times and the whole action occurs in roughly 1.5 seconds. The clip rolled by so fast on my first watch that I actually missed it . . .

So it is an EXTREMELY fast move and unlike the slowed down version you don't really see all the nuances of what's happening to the character.

[Mikintosh]

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Originally posted by: Mashiro

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And can you guys stop putting up the slowed-down GIF file as representational of how it looks like in game? It doesn't looks as bad in the original video because it goes faster; if you saw a video of a guy getting punched in slow-motion, that'd look worse too.

Mikintosh I think hits on a very relevant point . . . I went back and watched the video multiple times and the whole action occurs in roughly 1.5 seconds. The clip rolled by so fast on my first watch that I actually missed it . . .

So it is an EXTREMELY fast move and unlike the slowed down version you don't really see all the nuances of what's happening to the character.

Exactly. Also, saying that Snake is breaking someone's neck with that attack is like saying Link is literally stabbing people in the heart with his A move. If the opponent gets up after a few seconds, clearly he wasn't very injured. It's not a "realistic" reaction to if that was attempted in real life, but isn't SSB supposed to be unrealistic?

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: Mashiro
Mikintosh I think hits on a very relevant point . . . I went back and watched the video multiple times and the whole action occurs in roughly 1.5 seconds. The clip rolled by so fast on my first watch that I actually missed it . . .

So it is an EXTREMELY fast move and unlike the slowed down version you don't really see all the nuances of what's happening to the character.

First of all, I watched it in normal speed for the first time and I immediately knew what was happening: Snake does the move once and only once and Mario's head pops to the right. There's only one maneuver that looks like that. There's no non-lethal "disabling move" which happens in a split second that I know of which involves wrapping your arm around someone's throat (if anyone has a link to one, I'd be curious to see it).

If it were a choke, he'd squeeze and hold. If it were a sleeper, he'd do it multiple times, not once, but that's the thing: it's one pop, then Snake places the corpse on the ground, just like in his games.

If it was just his grab+A attack were he kept squeezing multiple times to damage the character until they wiggle out or he throws them, fine. But it quite clearly isn't.

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Originally posted by: Mikintosh
Exactly. Also, saying that Snake is breaking someone's neck with that attack is like saying Link is literally stabbing people in the heart with his A move. If the opponent gets up after a few seconds, clearly he wasn't very injured. It's not a "realistic" reaction to if that was attempted in real life, but isn't SSB supposed to be unrealistic?

Read what I said earlier: when Link hits someone with his sword, they bounce harmlessly off. Is this realistic? No, but that's the POINT of SSB. When Snake snaps a neck, he's restraining a character and basically executing them. That's the problem. It's a moment of very realistic violence in the middle of a cavalcade of comic violence.

[Crimm]

What if he just hit the ground, after the move, and sorta bounced back up like nothin happened?  Would it be as bad as it looks here, like the corpse of an Italian had been found in Hells Kitchen?

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: Crimm
What if he just hit the ground, after the move, and sorta bounced back up like nothin happened?  Would it be as bad as it looks here, like the corpse of an Italian had been found in Hells Kitchen?

If he Snake popped him and he then broke free and began moving immediately, it would seem a bit less grotesque. A lot of it is the "lay them on the ground like they're dead" motion which Snake does afterwards (not all of it, though).

I'm guessing most Nintendo fans have never played a MGS  game and thus have no idea what Snake is actually doing in that scene.