I find it easier, in fact, to imagine a female adventuress in Adventure than in Zork.
Wasn’t it written by Crowther for his daughters to play?
At the risk of making you feel more piled-upon (though, to be clear, I am thoroughly in agreement with maga, dfabulich, cvaneseltine, et al in this thread), and with the knowledge that you and I come from different language backgrounds:
This made me cringe almost as much as the rest of this thread’s discussion. Please don’t refer to humans as animals; please especially don’t refer to women as “whales,” even if you meant it lovingly. This is a term with a lot of negative connotations!
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Apologies, as I haven’t been following this thread, but purely as a factual correction: isn’t the large female soprano an old stereotype or cliche from the 19th century? Ignoring sex entirely, my home-town opera is generally made up of fairly svelte performers, and I find the idea that singers bulk up to improve their vocal quality to be…unlikely, at least today.
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You called out something important here, though - years later. Depending on their range, opera singers’ voices peak between 30 and 50 years of age.
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I think the problem with describing divas as “whales” may not be so much hurting the opera singers’ feelings, as contributing to the firehose of images and words directed at all girls and women that conveys the message that a woman who isn’t underweight is less than human; something that contributes to eating disorders and other body image problems. Ditto for the term “blubber.”
At least, that’s my take on it.
This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t talk about the size of opera singers, but there are other ways to do it (such as the word “large”). And doubling down on it after being called out extremely politely for it… well, maybe that is part of the reason you keep getting stomped on?
my sneakers are in my car
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You know, except to say that literally everything you have used as justification is factually unsupported at best and factually inaccurate at worst. There is little to no scientific evidence that weight affects vocal performance, so you are, in fact, talking out of your ass, or at least out of anecdotal evidence. (Just because a vocal teacher advises something doesn’t mean it’s anatomically sound or wise to do; the fact that even the greats have developed vocal problems should be evidence enough of this.) Plenty of dramatic and even Wagnerian sopranos – Kirsten Flagstad and Eva Turner, to name two – were of fairly average size; it’s the costumes that are bulky. There’s an old interview with Birgit Nilsson where she mentions that her costume for Turandot weighed 44 pounds. In that video you linked she’s wearing a fucking full-length cape, and when she lifts it anyone can plainly tell she is far from obese. This is what people are objecting to: taking women who are by all standards fairly average, glibly calling them “whales,” and then trying to justify your assertion with anecdotes and bunk without ever addressing the core of the thing.
Nor is this “part of operatic life,” except in stereotype. In fact, if you’re female, these days weighing more is a great way to participate less in operatic life. Deborah Voigt was fired from a Royal Opera House performance because of her weight. Recently, Tara Erraught received a wave of negative reviews not for her performance but for her looks, which was not proportionate with the reviews her male counterparts received.
I’m with Peter! Opera Sucks!
EDITED OUT.
I had a very big response here. I edited it out.
I’m tired of this. I just come here to talk about IF, now it’s so much shit it stinks to high heaven. Let’s just go back to talking about what we love. Apologies all around, I’m wrong, I’m an idiot, I’m stupid, I’m a piece of shit, I’m whatever you want me to be to end this right here and now, I publicly declare myself to a bloated bag of wind that doesn’t know when to stop.
So let’s get back to IF. And to Brothers, why don’t we.
On topic: Brothers does look completely gorgeous and I’m interested in the mechanics. Is anyone here enough in the loop on it to know if it’s expected to come to more platforms soon? (I almost wonder how it would work on a touchscreen…)
Brothers is the only game that ever made me gape at the screen, open mouthed. It’s a work of beauty like Journey.
It wouldn’t. It really needs a game controller.
If you start the game on a PC without a controller, it says, “please use a controller.” You can still play the game with WSAD controlling BB and arrows controlling LB, but it doesn’t work that well.
Of course there’s plenty of iOS games that use a ‘virtual thumbstick’ thingy on the screen, but they tend to suck, and trying to use two at once… well, I doubt it would be very satisfying to play, but it’s technically doable.
holy crap, someone should point the creators of the game to this deranged thread 
next chapter: sue Nintendo for its sexist plumber and too frail princess…