Orson Scott Card - Bigot & Bioware/EA

The Game Room
1

I love Bioware. Ever since I first got my dirty teenage hands on Baldur’s Gate, It’s been a love affair. I consider the Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights series the greatest RPG series of all time, and I judge every other RPG I play relative to those games. Their more modern RPG’s have also provided me with hours upon hours of entertainment, and their new game, Dragon Age: Origins, promises not to disappoint fans of the genre.

In promoting Dragon Age: Origins, I think Bio has done mostly well. There were some missteps, like the sudden change in marketing targeting more casual gamers with ads featuring Marylin Manson, and sex scenes, which, are great to experience as part of a deep and complex role-playing game, but awkward to see taken out of context at a public demo.

Still, just about everything else has been fantastic marketing, a lot of fun for the fans, and a great beginning to the franchise (I specially liked the first book written by David Gaider, and I’m looking forward to the second).

As yet another way of promoting their game and providing some more background for the setting they’ve struck a deal with IDW publishing for a series of comics. It sounded awesome. Although I don’t read comics anymore, I did when I was younger, and I would love to see the game world fleshed out through this medium.

Unfortunately, the writer they picked for the comic series is a bigot, publicly and politically active in stripping the rights of some of my fellow Americans. Orson Scott Card has, on numerous occasions, expressed his odious, bigoted, ignorant (I’ve run out of adjectives! Oh wait…) and intolerant views of homosexuals and his opposition to gay marriage. He’s called them deviants, and spouted support for laws against what they do privately, in their own bedrooms. He is happy casting them as some evil section of the populace that should NOT be treated equally.

On the announcement thread at the Bioware forums many fans expressed their disgust with the choice (myself included), but many others either attacked us with the usual rhetoric (How HYPOCRITICAL of us to claim to be tolerant, and yet we are so intolerant of this guy’s personal views! You’re just a bunch of gay uppity gay people!), or simply ignored this guys publicly held beliefs and actions.

I’d hate to miss out on the comics, but I don’t really want to support this guy.

Am I overreacting? Some of the people on the boards say that the only important thing is that he is a good writer, and that it’s the art that matters. For would knowing that the painter of a masterpiece on display at a museum was say, a murderer, really diminish the art piece itself?

I personally think that these people tacitly accept or even agree with this guy’s beliefs. I’m certain that if he was saying that black people or Hispanics shouldn’t have the right to marry, should be treated as second class citizens, are deviants, and we should stop them from having consensual sex, this problem wouldn’t exist. Bio would have never hired him, in fact I doubt he would still have his job, specially if he made his views as politically public.

How silly am I being?

2

Well, to be fair, Orson Scott Card would suck even if he weren’t a bigot. He’s basically a one-hit wonder after Ender’s Game. Someone got me Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind as a birthday present when I was a teen. I read Ender’s Game, and it was good. I read Speaker for the Dead, and it was decent, at best. I read Xenocide, and it was godawful. Children of the Mind only got read because the person who got me the books asked me what I thought about it, and I felt obligated. I wanted to poke my eyes out with sporks.

3

Not entirely true. His Hart’s Hope was enjoyable (IMO). But I am not a huge fan of his.

4

The enders shadow book was good too, though obviously just a remake of enders game. Still, bean proved an even more interesting character than ender imo.

Aside from that, is the comic any good? Why do you care whose name is on the cover? A good story is a good story, and a bad one is bad. If the guy annoys you so much, I recommend simply not talking to him.

5

I can see where you are coming from but it’s going way to far to say that everyone who defends Card’s right to write and who is willing to buy his work “tacitly accept or even agree with this guy’s beliefs”. To some of us it is the art that matters and fuck the artist. So yes, I’d say you are overreacting. Boycott him if you want but don’t accuse everyone who doesn’t of being anti-homosexual.

6

This is how I feel about artists & boycotts.

Right now, I think Roman Polanski & his Hollywood supporters are odious.
If in the near feature, he & his supporters filmed a faithful quality version of DRACULA, The Life of Christ, or ATLAS SHRUGGED, I’d go see it three times.

7

SO let me ask you this:

If he was indeed a racist, if he joined the KKK, and spouted the same exact garbage he spouts about homosexuals, but only did it about black people and Hispanics, Jews, etc, publicly, loudly, proudly and belonged to political groups trying their darnedest to put laws in the books creating a second class of citizenry for these people… would you get the comics, would you watch the movie?

8

I’ve read a lot of books by racists and anti-semites and slave owners, granted most of the authors were dead by the time I read them.

9

Again? Man, part of me is starting to think that Card takes these video game-related jobs just to piss off gamers.

Card was involved with the Xbox Live Arcade game Shadow Complex and even the developers of the game don’t much care for his politics. But they also realized that he is a big name in sci-fi and can help their product get more exposure. While I doubt Card’s involvement had much to do with it, Shadow Complex went on to become one of the biggest selling XBLA games ever because Shadow Complex is considered one of the best XBLA games ever.

So if you’re interested in the comics, buy them. Card’s views on homosexuality pretty much only hold sway with himself and the current generation of teens is so accepting of gay culture, that by the time Card is an old man, no one will really give a shit anymore.

10

I hear you on this, I really do - every time I actually read Card’s views on any issue of import, I’m pretty disgusted. But the guy really, genuinely is a talented story-teller - so long as he’s not given the chance to get on any sort of soapbox. (The “Ender’s Shadow” books were good precisely until Bean decided that he had to go rescue his unborn children, for example.)

Having Card on a project where he can put his formidable writing skills to work in a narrowly defined task where he cannot climb onto a soapbox seems like just the thing for him. I think he’ll do a good job. Whether or not it’s ethical to hire someone like him to do that good job is a harder question, of course.

11

Well, see, that’s why I didn’t buy the piece in the museum argument. I’d happily read Mein Kompf if I had the time. Sounds like an interesting read, if only to get a read on the guy’s mentality. But I don’t know how I would feel about giving him money for his work if he were still alive.

That’s one difference, the other is not that these are just personal views, that just makes him an idiot, but for me, he crosses a line when he tries to enshrine his bigoted views into our government. Then he becomes a dangerous idiot.

For example, I don’t like theists. That is, I have a predisposition to assume they are stupid when I meet them. Now, I have been disabused of the notion that is true by smarter people (theists in fact) than myself, but the immediate and reactionary belief that theists have something wrong with them persists.

I could understand a theist hearing this and not liking me on a personal level, but enjoying say some cool windows widget I made and not having a problem with that. But If supported organizations whose goal was to disallow theists to marry and to prohibit churches (something I would never do, btw), I could definitely understand someone not wanting to buy my widget.

::sigh:: maybe I am making a mountain out of a molehill.

12

If it’s something that galls you deeply, skip the comics. What you have to deal with at the end of the day is the only thing that matters. (I’d say “wait until he’s dead” but comics are different from books.)

Alternately, think about if there’s something you can do that would make you feel better if you do buy them. Maybe donate money to a gay-supporting organization, especially one that advocates for/actively seeks to overturn laws that are discriminatory. Like, donate double/triple/whatever the cost each time you buy a comic. If you want, put “Because Orson Scott Card is a jerk” on the check memo line or an “in ‘honor’ of OSC” message on the donation card.

Also, consider writing a real paper letter to Bioware expressing your feelings; they’re used to ignoring frothing-at-the-mouth forum trolls and may start painting with a broad brush after a while when it comes to Internet communications. Include specific quotes from him that demonstrate his hatred. Be polite, and explain how this makes you feel.

I do understand the opinions of others in the thread. There are a lot of real pricks in the entertainment field, in business, in everything. Everyone’s got to draw their line somewhere, but that will and should differ between people.

13

Kinthalis, I don’t think you’re overreacting. I find Card’s politics and “morality” to be vile as well.

I think the thing to remember is that decisions like this aren’t necessarily single-factor things. You’re absolutely in the right to not want to support him due to his views. You’re not talking about JUDGING his work based on his personal beliefs (which is sometimes valid, often not). You’re talking about AVOIDING his work based on his beliefs, which absolutely can be valid. But you’ve gotta weigh your dislike for the dude against your interest in the work.

14

Ferret and Typoinc thanks. That helped a lot. I specially like the suggestion to donate to a gay rights cause to sort of offset my purchase. I will still feel a pang of guilt, but I suppose that’s good. I’d feel weird if I didn’t feel anything at all.

I guess that if I look closely enough at the entertainment biz and the content creators specifically I probably would have to avoid 1/2 of the stuff I love.

15

OSC is kind of different, I suspect, because he’s pretty vocal about his opinions - to the best of my understanding. In that sense he’s seemingly trying to promote his way of thinking, over someone who keeps their opinions hidden, and so I do see it as more of a problem to have him doing this work over someone with concealed bigotry. (Might want to add something to that effect if you do write to Bioware.) So I wouldn’t worry too much about having to background check each and every person whose work you enjoy. :wink: If something overt happens that draws your attention to some writer/creator being a gigantic jerk/nasty human being, then that’s another matter.

16

He’s going to make it no matter what. The way I get around these things is I just don’t pay for them - I’ll borrow them from a friend, or from the library, but I will never spend my own money for them.

17

I have a couple of questions (for anyone who has an answer):

  1. Cite? Not that I doubt you, but I’d like to see Card’s own words on the matter.

  2. Have Card’s political or anti-homosexual views affected his fiction? Are there any homosexuals in his fiction, and, if so, how have they been portrayed?

18

Wiki link on his views and his political activities. I’ve never read his fiction (knowingly) so I can’t speak to that.

19

I don’t research anyones personal views before purchasing their products. I wouldn’t purchase a comic that was ABOUT those things but i don’t give a flying fuck about other peoples personal views. I wouldn’t vote for him but i fail to see what being a homophobic asshole has to do with writing comics. P.S. I love Polanskis movies, i think he should rot in jail, i see absolutely no reason why one thing should have anything to do with the other.

20

I think it’s reasonable to not want to support somebody who’s view one finds very offensive. I don’t think I ever have boycotted anything myself however, and in fact I am a big fan of Card’s fiction, and really REALLY disagree with his views of gays.