Do you like podcasts? Do you like comics? Are you not sure? Then We’ve Got issues is the podcast for you! Jumping off our Monthly Graphic Novel Recommendation, this podcasts talks about why we (didn’t) like reading our chosen title, which bits were our favourites and what were some of the more difficult things it made us think about.
In this month’s episode Esther, Sarah and Rachel talk about In Real Life by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang.
Due to the poor sound quality of this podcast, we’ve provided a transcript below
Episode 5 Transcript
Sarah: Welcome to Episode 5 of the We’ve Got Issues podcast, the one where we go full colour.
Esther: I’m Esther De Dauw.
Sarah: I’m Sarah Stevens.
Esther: And today we’re going to be joined by our good friend, Rachel Quinney. She is a University of Leicester alumni, did her masters in English with us, which is why Sarah and I both know her. And she’s also an independent artist and teacher.
Rachel: Hello.
Esther: Hello.
Sarah: Thanks for joining us, Rachel. So, Esther, I’m gonna start with the usual question: why did you choose In Real Life as this month’s graphic novel recommendation?
Esther: While I was typing up the list, I kinda realised we had quite a few heavy ones in a row, a few heavy graphic novels in a row. So, I was thinking… On the one hand, that’s actually good because it demonstrates that graphic novels can do serious topics and do them really well. On the other hand, maybe something a bit lighter and something a bit more colourful and In Real Life kind of fits that really well because it does deal with some serious topics, but it is more colourful and is a bit more cheerful and I thought that would be a really interesting way forward.
Sarah: I’m not gonna lie. It was nice to read something that didn’t make me feel like really sad after reading it.
Esther: I’m really glad.
Sarah: Or like, questioning the world around me. It was quite nice to have a bit of something … With that said, there are some … interesting topics in there. It’s not all…
Esther: It’s not all fairy tales and fun times.
Sarah: No.
Esther: No, It’s a good mix … It’s a good mix of the two. And I think when I put it on the list, I hadn’t read it yet. I’d read a lot of reviews and thought people really liked it. So, I kind of put it on the list in brackets, thinking… Oh, if it really good and I like it, we’re definitely gonna do it. Then, I had the opportunity to read it and it is really engaging and a very, very fast read. It is slimmer than quite a few of the texts we’ve had this year. But, it is a very, very smooth, fast read. I think I did read it in, like, a day or something like that.
Sarah: I read it initially and then I re-read it on Monday and it took me about an hour to get through the entire thing, if that. It’s pretty easy to read, which is nice. It’s nice to have something you can just pick up and …
Esther: It’s very much to me though like, the pace of reading can differ very much in graphic novels because like you can always go back and revisit and look at panels. It’s really interesting how the graphic novel can change from one reading to another, depending on what you’re paying attention to. But, definitely, an hour is very feasible for In Real Life because it’s just so smooth, the pace is… the pacing is very well done, I would say. What do you think, Rachel?
Rachel: I agree. I think it … there was not a sense of over-narration, which you can get especially with more serious … They tend to over-narrate and the absence of that is what makes this comic quite refreshing. I read it in … 40 minutes because I read it in a tram journey. And yeah, I think the way that the panels are shaped, how the text flows down and there are pages where they’ve got a lot of information, but it’s information you don’t need to read. You just need to know it’s there. On the page where you see the gold farming, like, what they’re actually selling, it’s got about six lines that you could read, but you just need to know “okay, they’re selling gold for money”.
Esther: Yeah.
Rachel: So, I think the absence of needing to read it, but knowing it’s there, makes it a much slower flow.
Sarah: Yeah, I’m like flicking through here. I’m looking at … the dialogue is … I mean you get some pages that has quite a lot of dialogue, but really, it’s quite sparse. The artwork is very important I think in this.
Esther: Yeah, I think you very rarely get like, what I would say is straight-out narration. A lot of the things you piece together from dialogue and the background. In Real Life is really good at giving you so much information from what is visually depicted and I think that’s really interesting. Because I think we’ve had comics that do that in less detail, previously, I would say. I mean, obviously, it’s always a relationship between text and art, the graphic novel. But I think In Real Life has a really, really good way … and I can’t exactly put my finger on exactly what it is and how it does it, but it just conveys so much information. I think a lot of it is that kind of online aspect of it, because it’s about online gaming, so if you’re kind of familiar with like, symbols, internet symbols and stuff like that or like, the layout of a computer programme, you kind of just pick up a lot of stuff, but it kind of just utilises a lot of that stuff, I would say.
Rachel: Yes, it’s a very natural way, I mean, of our generation, who do use computers a lot. It’s very accessible, but at the same time it doesn’t rely on in-depth knowledge of MMOs, which is…
Esther: Yeah, MMOs are …
Rachel: Multi …
Sarah: Massive Multi-Player Online Role Playing Games … Like I have to keep saying it!! Or looking it up, like … “I WILL REMEMBER THIS.” But, I think it’s quite good at not treating the reader like an idiot, basically. It’s euhm… I dunno, it’s like simple but it’s not … that doesn’t mean there’s not a lot to it. It’s just very clever with what it does, I think. It uses like the minimum amount to tell a lot.
Esther: I definitely agree with that though. It’s not like minimalist storytelling, but it has that kind of … vibe I think? I feel like it trusts the reader to piece a lot together, because it knows how strong it is in terms of narration. So, it’s not afraid that you’re going to miss something.
Rachel: Kudos to Jen Wang as well, coz, she … it doesn’t say “She was sad”, it shows that the main character when she is sad. You see it in the art and that’s what a lot of comics can kind of fall back on where they’re sort of be like “ooooh my inner thoughts: I’m so sad.”
Esther: Yeah, definitely.
Rachel: But this gives you a panel of her face and it’s like “Okay, she’s feeling sad.”
Sarah: There’s some really close-up panels of Anda’s face that really show, kind of, what she’s thinking and how she’s feeling about stuff.
Esther: It’s a bit similar to Blankets in that regard. Because Blankets does something similar where … obviously you have lots and lots of narration about the inner thought process. But you also have moments where there’s silence and it fixates on faces. In Real Life has something like that close-up of the face. I’m sure loads of graphic novels actually do that, but I think it’s really really well done that you see so much from the artwork. And I personally like … coz we’ve talked about how smooth it is as a read, but I also just really enjoyed it. I really liked it. What do you guys think?
Sarah: It’s a bit of a weird one for me because when I first read it I think because of kind of the other stuff we’ve done before I was a bit like “oh, was that, was that it?” It’s almost like it was too light.
Esther: Like, no one died?? No one gets attacked? What?
Sarah: What’s going on? So, I kind of felt like it was quite light but then I kind of remembered that you kind of have to just see it more for what it is and that’s the thing about like … I mean, here we are kind of talking about graphic novels and stuff. You can’t necessarily compare them all because they are so different and they are for different purposes. And you know, we read one like Nat Turner, which goes into such detail about some really intense issues and then you’ve got something like this, which is a lot lighter. And it’s very hard to sit here and say how did I feel about that one maybe in comparison to that one or whatever. So, I think on the first read I was bit like meh, but actually on the second read I probably enjoyed it a little bit more. Maybe again, because I did a bit of research and that’s one thing I found from doing this podcast, is that I enjoy things a lot more when I’ve researched about it and gone back and read it again. Also, sorry, just to like … go on a bit of a monologue. I also read this short story that In Real Life is based on.
Esther: Yes.
Sarah: Anda’s Game and that is quite different and it did make me question why they didn’t take more from that, made it more like the original story.
Esther: Yeah, I think that is an interesting point. I think it’s because it’s not meant to be a straight out adaptation as such. What do you think Rachel?
Rachel: Yeah, I wasn’t aware it was actually based off another narrative. And I know I kind of felt the same when I first read it, but I read it a couple of years ago and I think I was going through a stage of searching for stories with DEEP, SERIOUS meaning. So, I was okay, it’s a good comic, but that’s … it’s a good comic and now I re-read it and I see what I disliked about it before and there is still an element about it that I’m kind of like mmmm?? But at the same time, it’s really nice and warm, positive comic and there’s like of positives about it that outweigh the negative. So, I like it.
Esther: I like it. I feel like it’s … to me, when I was growing up and like, the internet first came in and I think, when I was first growing up, I was very much like “oh, it’s gonna help us all connect, bring us closer together, the global community, the global village.” And now, as an adult, I’m like “Twitter is the worst thing that has ever happened to humanity, it’s a hellsite.” Whereas I think, having read In Real Life, I kind of think back on “oh, you know, actually there are really positive things about the way that we are able to connect online.” Yes, it gets taken advantage of and yes there are dark aspects to it. But I think In Real Life kind of demonstrates what we could do if you know, most people who went online tried to make it a positive … experience.
Sarah: If we weren’t trash …
Esther: If human beings weren’t ultimately trash bears, yes, definitely.
Sarah: As, actually, worth reading in the front of In Real Life, there’s a little introduction by Corey. Now, I don’t know ..
Esther: Corey Doctorow?
Sarah: Corey Doctorow. I didn’t know how that was said and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself.
Esther: I don’t know how that was said either but that’s what I think it is, so I’m going with it.
Sarah: Corey Doctorow, the introduction, yeah, talks about sort of the internet and how it can be used for like activism and you know the fact that it can be a force for good despite sort of the negatives in there and that’s actually … Because sometimes when you see an intro in the beginning by the author or whatever you’re like “I can’t be bothered to read this, I just wanna read the book.”
Esther: Yeah.
Sarah: But is actually worth reading, because it’s a nice little insight to read before you kind of read it or after you’ve read the novel.
Esther: Yeah, I think that’s a good point because I think on the one hand activism, or what we call direct action, has plummeted since the advent of the internet, but I feel like increasingly the way that the internet can be used to mobilise people has become very clear so it’s that kind … it’s the two sides of the coin, isn’t it?
Sarah: Well, he was saying, on a most basic level it’s stuff like the amount of time that he, as a young person, spent say stuffing envelopes and posting them and that to get information out whereas now, you can do that all for free and that’s an amazing resource.
Esther: Yeah, it’s about how you utilise it, I guess, at the end of the day.
Sarah: Yeah.
Esther: But I think it is an interesting point that, because I was not aware that it had been based on a previous short story.
Sarah: Yeah, but it was Cory Doctorow’s own short story.
Esther: Oh right, okay.
Sarah: That was released in 2004. I was quite surprised, I say, about how different it was because it’s more adult in its language and its tone. It’s possibly a little bit more negative about gaming then…
Esther: Oh right.
Sarah: Yeah and especially the physical effect. Like, in the graphic novel, we can physically see that Anda is in a large body. But, he kind of, in the short story, really kind of pushes it home that she’s like overweight and …
Esther: Right.
Sarah: To a point where I was bit like “I’m not sure I like it” and there’s a bit where she loses weight at the end and that’s kind of placed as a part of her arc or her story.
Esther: I’m not sure I like that.
Sarah: Yeah and it’s really bizarre.
Esther: Your weight is actually not an accurate *sigh* an accurate …
Sarah: Indicator?
Esther: Indicator of your health.
Rachel: Did he kind of say that she got off the internet and lost weight?
Sarah: Yeah.
*mutual groan*
Sarah: It’s basically implied that because she stops spending time on it and that she starts, kind of, doing other stuff that she loses weight.
Esther: Right, because if you are a naturally heavier person, just walking around is gonna help you lose weight??? That’s not how any of this works!
Sarah: Yeah.
Esther: That’s not how any of that works.
Sarah: It kinda made me a little bit sad.
Esther: Yeah, that makes me a bit sad… That just like, Jesus, I was rooting for you, Corey?? What the hell man?
Sarah: But then, that said, there is a big gap between when that was written and when this was published, which means that, reflecting on that, things might have been changed in order to reflect his own change in values.
Esther: I certainly feel that in the last 10 years, there is an increased awareness about that relationship between body weight and health and mental health and gaming and that we now know … Because, I think like in the early 00s, that was like the big scary time when it was like “Ooh everyone’s gaming and watching TV!” And people are gonna like, the world is gonna end because young people don’t know how to do anything and everyone’s becoming violent because of video games and all that kind of thing and we now know that that’s obviously not true. So yeah, when was this published?
Sarah: 10 years after.
Esther: 10 years after. It’s interesting then to see those differences. Do you have any idea what Jen Wang’s kind of contribution might have been to the storyline? Has there been any …?
Sarah: I know that she … basically, she had a big input. Jen Wang had a big input into the narrative and she worked
alongside Cory to put that together. So, it may well be that a female
perspective kind of helped with that?
Esther: Likely? But that’s speculation on our part.
Sarah: *whilst being continuously interrupted by Esther* I mean, one of the things that I noticed the first time reading this was the fact that Anda’s body isn’t something that is made into a spectacle or [garbled] It’s quite positive. That’s quite a dramatic difference, so something’s happened along the line to change that view.
Esther: I think you certainly feel… I certainly noticed that Anda’s slightly bigger, but that’s mostly in comparison to her Avatar … Her Avatar is very slim and that’s when I kind of noticed. But, I think you make a fairly good point that Anda’s obviously not … her body isn’t made a big thing. It’s not an issue and she seems to be a shy loner, but she doesn’t seem to be bullied because of her weight. That doesn’t seem to be a big element in the story.
Rachel: I’m just flicking through the panel because I’m sure the first time that I noticed … Oh yes, this is definitely not like an artist, the decision… On the panel on page 118, when she’s dying her hair. That kind of made me go “oh yeah, this is definitely a deliberate indication as to how large a woman” I can’t believe it took me that long to notice and we can kind of … there’s something refreshing about it … she’s a big woman, end of. It’s not “ooooh, she’s a big woman so therefore she’s repressed
Esther: But, I think it’s interesting that you didn’t notice until that far into the story, because that just kind of indicates how much of a thing it isn’t. Like, it’s definitely not a big deal, it’s not a big thing, which I think is really interesting because I feel like in so many comics women’s bodies are made a big deal off.
Sarah: So yeah, one of the
things that I took away from this was the way that Anda’s avatar is shaped and the fact that her avatar is quite skinny?
Shall we say skinny?
Esther: I would say very slim.
Sarah: Very slim.
Esther: Very idealised.
Sarah: Very white?
Esther: Yeah, but, like, she’s meant to be… Is she meant to be human in the game? Or is she an elf or something?
Sarah: I think she’s meant to be human.
Rachel: I think she’s meant to be human, because the species they offer as [garbled] I think she is … She’s definitely human, but if we were to take the screen that we get on page 14 [garbled] It’s pretty common in MMA. Myself and Esther share an MMO that we both play on.
Esther: Guild Wars!
Rachel: Guild Wars! And a bigger character often means bigger boobs on women.
Esther: Not for the Norn though! Coz you can basically make a Norn flat-chested if you wanted to. [garbled]
Rachel: No because it’s the body type. It’s the body type, because you have skinny…
Esther: I missed that completely! Because I tried to make my Norn as flat chested as possible coz I was like I want her to be the butchest Norn … because the Norn are like giants. They’re human, but they’re basically huge. So, I was like, I want the biggest lady that I can possibly make, with muscles. So, I’m just misremembering that. So, I was like… So maybe I just blocked the disappointment from my memory.
Rachel: But it’s even the same for the male characters, because I’ve got a male character who… I’ made him as wide as I could and everything just looks terrible on him because all the outfits are stretched. So, it’s like uuuurgh.
Sarah: Right, coz, I was thinking that was more like, Ada’s choice to make her Avatar appear that way, kind of, [garbled]
E? R? [Garbled]
Sarah: Yeah, but possibly, just through the fact that she can’t make her character look like herself
Esther: But that’s certainly the point. I think from what I remember, the idea is certainly that the Avatar you pick is kind of an idealised version of yourself. In fact, the amount of times that I’ve heard people argue about the fact that they can’t make their Avatar look like them, that’s pretty significant … This idea that the character is an idealised version of who we are is being pushed on us so that we don’t have confidence in ourselves. Or that the options that we have are shit.
Rachel: When I create avatars in games and stuff, I kind of want things to be similar but some things to be wildly different. I want it to be, like have those little touches that are personal to you. But it’s all about having that option, isn’t it? The fact that you don’t even have that choice because … it’s almost as if game companies are like “Well, why would you want to choose that body?”
Esther: How could you possible happy with that?
Sarah: Yeah.
Rachel: I think it’s also not just … I kind of zoned in on the … [garbled] with multiple outfits. What outfits will fit the slimmest model then they to then make that same outfit fit the largest? Which, I think, I mean you could make outfits in different sizes and kind of scale … make 5 different versions of the outfit, but that’s more money than companies want to spend.
Sarah: Yeah
Rachel: Capitalism.
Esther: For some reason, I didn’t think that you’d have to have different sizes in video games? Because can’t you set it to fit whatever the size of the thing is? Which kind of reveals how little I know of coding probably. My brain I just like “make it fit! Why is that so hard?”
Rachel: It’s like euhm, say that you draw a picture and then just stretch it out? Those pixels only become stretched, so you have to draw
Esther: Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean… That’s just something I hadn’t considered, at all. Euhm, and I think that kind of brings us to very interesting points about how this is a comic book about gaming and it has a girl as the main character. So how do we feel about that?
Sarah: yay!
Esther: Hooray!
*laughter*
Rachel: Yeah, I tried through this and there are only 2 or 3 characters that are male.
Esther: Ooh, that’s interesting.
Rachel: You got Raymond, Ah Duo And the dad.
Esther: Oh yeah.
Rachel: Oh you’ve also got the male nerds who like, “you can’t play DnD with the gaming club?”
Esther: That is definitely a stereotype, but that is how I know them to be as a woman in nerd spaces. You have people who are very enthusiastic and very loving and very nice in these spaces, but you definitely have the nerdy gatekeepers who are like …
Rachel: You’re not welcome here.
Sarah: I found it interesting that actually within the game itself, there wasn’t a lot of any of the comments, misogynistic, that you might expect in gaming culture? It’s kind of outside in the real world that she encounters that. Actually, this is something I’m more familiar with because I’m not a massive computer or a console gamer, I’m a table top gamer and there’s quite a lot of levels of kind of snobbery about this. And there is a certain attitude about what games are like … They’ll do like air quotes about [garbled] and wordy games. And what playing a certain game says about you as a person and as a … you know and if someone did go up to a group of DnD players and said I want to play board games that involves Jenga and scrabble and … that reaction is pretty damn accurate.
Esther: It’s too mainstream?
Sarah: If you mention Monopoly to table top gamers, they will go nuts because they hate that game. But [garbled]
Esther: Is it not sophisticated enough? But I think increasingly you are finding non-mainstream games in shops. It’s becoming cool and normal now to play lots of board games.
Sarah: As you are getting more diverse designers and players and things like that, everything starts to open up a little bit. I mean, there are more conversations happening about diversity in board games
Esther: I think it also very much depends on where you are and where you go. So, for instance, I’ve never had any problem in going into Forbidden Planet in Leicester. They actually have like girls working there, there’s lots of women in there every time I go in, lots of different people every time I go in there.
Sarah: And they’re quite approachable as well. I’ve never had a bad vibe of anyone in there or every time I’ve had to ask for help in there, I’ve never had anyone be like *mock deep voice* Ooh, why are you asking about comics?
Esther: They’re all really cool when I go in. They’re always really lovely. They have a really good vibe. But then, I have been to other comic book shops in the country where I did feel out of place, I did feel stared at. And back in Belgium is the same. There are so few comic book shops that cater to American comic books or English language comic books because Belgium is very big on like European Bande Dessiné, which is a different type altogether and the vibe in there is completely different. There’s so [garbled] little women go in there and the vibe can feel very exclusionary. You can feel very stared at when you go in. So, I think, it very much depends on where you go and in turn, what kind of attitude you encounter. So …
Rachel: This podcast is brought to you by Forbidden Planet
Esther: In Nottingham, go to Page 45 because that is a local comic book shop! So, to kind of bring it back to girls in gaming. What does it mean to be a female gamer? So, Rachel, you have a large online presence, you play lots of different games. You are, more than any of us, I would say, a female gamer.
Rachel: It’s difficult to talk about, because I genuinely only play within areas that I feel safe? So like, in Overwatch, I don’t tend to go on voice chat because I don’t want to be shouted at by a twelve year old from America or have whoever’s playing Genji ask for healing. But, I also … I just make those safe spaces? But generally, I think … The videogames we use, you can’t … the videogames we play where you can pick a character, you generally do play the male character. But I quite like that in a lot of games, whichever gender you pick, it doesn’t have a large effect on the game? And I like that.
Esther: Yeah, I think in Guild Wars 2, like … I think it’s pretty funny. In Guild Wars 2, the different versions that I’ve played – what kind – if you pick a human, the class you pick as in whether you’re rich of poor, that massively changes the game setting, but the gender does not.
[garbled]
Rachel: As well as the species you play. There are 5 species and within those species you can be like “Oh I’m from this background or this background” and that effects the start story but it’s not kind of … overall people aren’t like “Oh, we’ve got a female commander!!! Ooh”
Esther: That is nice though, I like that.
Sarah: What I was gonna say was, in terms of having safe spaces in which to play … because, the Fahrenheit who are the clan within Coarsegold within In Real Life, Anda’s female guild, so that’s kind of their own safe space. And the fact that people need to build their safe space in the first place is kind of a little bit concerning. Do we think it’s concerning?
Esther: I mean, yeah, I would say that, it’s definitely something that not everyone pays attention to. But then, actually, the safe space thing … I think it shouldn’t be a gender issue. Even though I think it clearly is, I think specific people who go online with gender or race or sexuality feel the need to create safe spaces. But, I would actually argue that white men, young white men, young white boys should do the same thing. There’s a lot of predators available online and I think it’s interesting that we consider specific people in our society to not need protection, to not need a safe space, but actually maybe they should, wonder if they need it? Personally that’s kind of how I look at it. The online world is so vast and so wide and we shouldn’t need safe spaces, but it’s definitely true that the way that, you know, people talk about women or minorities online or people who are gay online necessitates community or safe spaces. If we could kind of shift the idea of what is a safe space, who needs a safe space, what should be present within the safe space… If we could kind off shift the dialogue ….
Rachel: I think because it’s just so [garbled] and also the gaming industry, you know, it’s just a mesh of [garbled] and toxic masculinity, with the gamergate collab, which has now turned into comics gate as well.
Esther: Don’t!! STOP!!
Rachel: Sorry.
Sarah: Yeah, I was reading about kind of gamergate as part of my research and didn’t kind of include it in all of my notes because it was just so big and also …
Esther: I mean, only recently, the company that creates Guild Wars fired a female designer because the female designer was talking about the kind of difficulties of doing character design in an online game, so her professional life and her job and this complete rando, who doesn’t do anything came up and said *mocking voice* “Oh have you thought about doing this??” And I think she probably was like, she’s had it and went “no, I’m a professional, there are various why *mocking voice* I can’t just do this” and she took a very firm stance and he did that thing where *mocking voice* “Oh I was just trying to help” And it’s no, you were patronising, you were not trying to help. It’s just a very handy excuse to hide behind. And then, he got all his followers to be like harassing her online, complaining to her boss and she got the sack! For standing up for herself on her personal twitter account. So, gaming culture is not exactly a great place to be in right now.
Sarah: But, we don’t actually see a lot of that within the graphic novel, which I was surprised by. I felt like we would see more of that and I feel like, because they have that all female guild, that’s a good way of writing that out of the story so they can focus on other stuff like the gold mining and everything. Because you would expect, I dunno, maybe how negative you know it is, you would expect a young woman like Anda to experience some misogyny in games.
Rachel: The thing about having that whole female guild… I think, the whole thing was set up really weirdly for me?
Sarah: Yeah.
Rachel: I think because you have this… You have Liza come in, who is the guild leader of the Fahrenheits. And she says, how many of you, how many women play videogames? And then how many of you play as women in videogames? That’s how she kind of comes in, so it’s slowly setting up this female empowerment.
Sarah: And that’s what confused me because it didn’t go anywhere!
Rachel: So, she talks and I get towards the end and she gets the cast to go and make friends with them, the people. She makes friends with Steph – the girl from the – who wants to do the game club.
Sarah: But, it just kind of goes nowhere.
Rachel: you have this whole set up, it’s gonna be female empowering, you got this full female guild and then she just makes one female friend and that’s it. It just peters off and it had so much potential but [garbled] but for me it got a bit confusing. Is it gonna be a story about female empowerment and confidence and team building or is it gonna be about cultural differences?
Sarah: Yeah and it didn’t really know…
Rachel: what it wanted…
Sarah: wanted to do.
Rachel: I mean there is also that set up in the original Anda’s Game.
Sarah: Yeah, but I mean there is a little bit more – I would say there is a little bit more of mention about female characters. She mentions the fact that a lot of the female characters in games are scantily clad and doesn’t want to be in a game like that and she mentions how in Coarsegold, they wear a lot more realistic clothing. So, it does come and touch on that a little bit more. It’s just… It’s a bit of … Also, did you find it weird that Liza just shows up in their school? Telling them about gaming?
Rachel: As a teacher, I can’t even go into my … into another class that I don’t teach and go “hi, I’m playing video games, come join my guild, it’ll be great for your self-esteem!”
Sarah: So, I think there is a negative – a few generations above us, have a very different idea of what gaming is?
Rachel: Yeah, I would understand her being allowed in if she made the game or if she was one of the designers and giving a talk
Esther: Wait, doesn’t she talk about it being like a big initiative to get girls into gaming to boost their confidence? It sounds like part of a wider campaign set out nation-wide, that is the impression that I got.
Rachel: She comes from Australia.
Esther: Yeah, it’s like an international thing [garbled] an organisation who are like trying to push girls into gaming so they can become confident and push them into STEM fields, like that.
Sarah: But they don’t go into detail about and if that is the case, then maybe they should have made that clear.
Esther: I don’t know, maybe I kind of just built this whole narrative around this single thing. I do that sometimes.
Sarah: It really bothers me that she calls Liza the Organisa because it feels like that is the kind of thing that your mum like might call herself or something, you know,
[garbled]
Rachel: She is a cool character.
Sarah: She is.
Rachel: She has a cool design. But yeah like, it just seems really odd for her to come all the way from Australia to tell people to join a guild unless there was like a wider motive or a wider organisation for it?
Esther: Mhmm
Rachel: So, I think I do agree that there has to be something more for it but without that rooting in the actual text itself, it’s just unusual. It’s on page, like 8, she appears and …
Sarah: It’s not a massive part, but it just kind of bothers me… It’s like, how? How? It’s really Weird.
Rachel: I agree, I agree. It does feel a bit like … I understand why it was there narratively, but she could have just had like a shirt saying “game over” or like “gaming girls unite” or some sort of branding.
Sarah: Yeah, or [garbled] this is the reason for the plot to develop. It felt kind of a bit…
Esther: Elbowed in?
Sarah: Yeah?
Rachel: Coz on page 135…
Esther: Where they meet in the classroom, innit?
Rachel: [garbled] When you go to page 35, she gets a message from Liza about the fact that she’s been breaking the rules by doing paid kill goldfarming missions and then [garbled] ? Because neither are you part of the…
[High-pitched, garbled laughing]
Sarah: Why is she at the school again? Is she just wandering around their school?
Esther: That’s why I thought it was like…. Well yeah, it’s in the computer lab, and her parents are looking at it. So, it must be like a thing. So, I must have built this narrative out of like random little indicators
Sarah: Or maybe someone needs to like have a chat and find out what Liza is doing in that school. She’s just wandering around.
Esther: Yeah, just randomly wandering around.
Sarah: Chatting to kids about online gaming.
Esther: Yeah.
Rachel: [garbled] So you do imagine she is part of the course gold development team in some form?
Sarah: But also plays it?
Rachel: But also plays it. Oh yeah, a lot … like in Guild Wars, you do run into members of the development team, coz they’ve got like their little icons
Sarah: Do you think the school would be like evaluating gaming? Like I said, a few generations older than us do not see gaming in the same way or see it in a more negative light. I think certainly, maybe like, my parents probably wouldn’t see gaming as a school kids thing.
Rachel: But this is in an IT lesson and …
Sarah: Yeah
Esther: An IT lesson and also, she’s 14 in the year 2014, that’s a very different …
Sarah: I know!
Esther: time then when I was 14 … I was 14 in 2004
*panicked ‘we’re all so old’ groaning*
Sarah: And then we all cried…
*laughter*
Rachel: Has anyone got a look at her teacher? I know you shouldn’t judge people by their cover, but she’s got like … I suppose that is quite useful to identify people as well. Also, now in the curriculum, they do have to like learn coding.
Sarah: That’s really cool. That’s the kind I wish we’d have had a chance to learn I guess.
Rachel: I think the teacher is young and it’s like … it’s not a gaming college coz I don’t … she’s not old enough to be at university yet, but she’s making games isn’t she? As part of her coursework?
Sarah: Again, that kind of loses its way in terms of like … that’s really interesting, she’s making her own games it’s shown. But to what point? And I think that maybe where this kind of annoyed me a little bit, was that it does have these little strands that it kind of pulls up but doesn’t really address or doesn’t really follow up on as much as it could maybe?
Rachel: I feel like it doesn’t need to be addressed at the same time? Because one, it would double the length of it as well. But I think it is just you know “look, we have these women … these 3 women who are making videogames at a young age” and it’s very much… We don’t need to address, we just want to make … normalize it in the same way that they just normalised her size? I think that’s maybe what they were attempting? I mean, I completely agree with you …
Sarah: I think Esther’s got me on the hard stuff, in these comic books and now I can’t take anything lightly anymore. It has to be really hard and depressing?
Esther: Don’t blame me!
Sarah: Or, I can’t … I can’t like enjoy it
Esther: don’t blame me! Like, it’s easy… you came in, we started the podcast on an unfortunate time is all because only a month before that we had Lumberjanes and that’s really light euhm, so soz.
*laughter*
Rachel: So, sort of moving on, about sort of the whole [garbled] I think the reaction from my mom when she found out that her daughter was making money from the internet from strangers was a 100% accurate. That’s the sort of thing my mom would do.
Sarah: I couldn’t … I couldn’t work it out when I was kind of reading those bits. I was like … Is her mum overreacting? But also is her mum kind of, considering what her mum knows, which is a limited amount. All she knows is that her daughter is going online and getting paid by men for something she doesn’t know. Like, I would probably be concerned about that. Maybe that shows I’m getting older because you stop being like …
Esther: I think…
Sarah: Because I’m just so uncool!
Esther: I think I’d be like “dude, what the fuck?” And not … I’d just sit them down and be like “so, I’ve let you go online and now you’re making money online and you’ve not talked to me about this. About whether it’s okay for you to do this, you know. For all you know … are you paying taxes on this?”
Rachel: To HMRC.
*laughter*
Esther: I’d be concerned about how this happened, why they’ve not spoken to me about this and I’d just wanna make sure that the thing you are doing is legal and safe as well. Most importantly, safe. What exactly are you being paid to do? Because it is a very sort of concerning thing, especially for a parent who’s not very online savvy, who doesn’t know what’s happening who’s probably read loads of scandals online about you know men tricking girls into taking their clothes off and that sort of thing.
Sarah: But maybe her reaction is like understandable, but it’s the way she goes about it which is not necessarily … because then, it does cause Anda to go underground a bit and kind of be more secretive.
Esther: I guess, to me, it kind of indicates that Anda is already not in a great communication place with her mum. and Anda is kind of very withdrawn and shy and insecure and a bit of a loner, but you know, the fact that she didn’t sit down with her mum and go “btw, this is happening” is a bit concerning.
Rachel: I mean, the relationship between her and her mum seems very positive, but I do have a note written here “why does Anda never talk to her mum saying I’m gonna earn money doing this” or I could be making money because she talks about how she’ll make money to pay for the game through babysitting?So why not say, oh I’m earning money by playing the game, which will then cover the cost.
Sarah: Do you think that maybe Anda already knows in a way, she can’t put her finger on it, but she kind of knows it’s not quite right.
Esther: I feel like, she goes along with it pretty easily, but she does start questioning it. Doesn’t she? Like kind of?
Rachel: When they and Sarge talk … and then, [garbled] Technically, not illegal, it’s not a crime but it’s against the rules of the game.
Esther: Yeah, it’s against the rules of the game. And I think, it’s kind of… It’s this thing she knows, she does realise it’s slightly dodgy. Because doesn’t the person who invites her to do it, ask her to kind of stay quiet about it?
Sarah: Sarge.
Esther: Sarge, yeah.
Rachel: I think it’s kind of shady that you don’t see Sarge’s face.
Esther: Yeah, coz it introduces the idea that [garbled] goes all shady and non-descript. So, it does introduce us to the idea that it is dodgy straight away, it’s secretive.
Rachel: And she’s completely blacked out, like I didn’t understand why they did it because they were already voice chatting or videochatting.
Esther: Yeah.
Rachel: So yeah, I think how it’s presented is sinister.
Esther: It’s not to Anda, but to us, to the audience, it’s kind of shady, kind of dodgy.
Sarah: Do you wanna talk about a little bit more about what’s going on there and why and what she’s actually doing?
Esther: To those of you who are not familiar with gold farming and, do correct me if I’m wrong about this, Rachel. The way I understand it, is that essentially, when you play an online game, you can do missions and you can also farm. So, you get natural resources from the landscape in the game and you can sell those so users can make items. And, there’s a lot of rare items that you can find this way and that kind of thing. But it takes a lot of time out of the game play to be doing loads and loads of farming. So, there’s quite a lot of characters, people out there, who do the farming and then sell those items for real money to other players. Actually, World of Warcraft had that, with loads of, loads of gold farming that was being sold. And people were doing that like full-time, people quit their jobs to do that for 10 years. The World of Warcraft economy collapsed and then these people, like, had to go back to the job market and were like “how do I put on a CV that I have a 10 year gap because I was gold farming for 10 years without saying exactly that.”
Sarah: But more concerning than you know just individuals doing that is the fact that some of the gold farmers are kind of working in what we’d call like sweatshop conditions.
Rachel: Just to move on to the conditions, I think the set up with the gold farming and being able to kill the gold farmers to loot their resources… It just doesn’t make sense really? Like, very rarely in videogames you can, unless it is set up in a sort of PVP player situation, you very rarely can kill other players.
Esther: Very rarely.
Rachel: And like even then, it’s like explained in a reason, like Destiny II, has PVE, which is player vs everyone, where you can, you could fight a character and then you’d just play PVE where your character never permanently dies? And also it’s like … you don’t … so therefore, why would you kill them and not just report them? Which is a different approach
Esther: Is it the case in this game that if you get killed in game you lose items as well and points or something? Which is even rarer, I would say. It’s even more rare… So, it’s very rare to be able to kill other active players, even more rare for those players to be reset back like a level or something. That’s more like traditional video gaming where there are no other players. I’m thinking of Lara Croft, where you die, you go back to the last point you saved it at or something. Or Final Fantasy, that’s what I played. So, I think it would be … it is very rare.
Rachel: It’s just to me, it did feel a bit shoehorned in, like there’s no sense of regularity about it? So, if we ignore that huge gaping hole …
*garbled laughter*
Rachel: Raymond is sort of the protagonist from Thailand, isn’t he? And he’s working unholy hours.
Sarah: Because apparently, I did not know this, until I had to do research, but 80% of all gold farmers in online games are in a place in China. That is a lot.
Esther: I think it used to be a massive thing in America as well, but that was mostly contained to World of Warcraft.
Sarah: And that was more kind of individual
Esther: Yeah, it certainly wasn’t companies, I would say.
Sarah: But these people in, you know, in what they call sweatshops are employed by large companies. So they would do the mining of the gold and stuff and then these companies would sort of sell it online and there were [garbled] exploited and the fact that they could pay people those low wages because they’re based in countries where they don’t have to pay particularly hour wages and they’d be working sort of 12 hours shifts in poor conditions. And also, which I found really fascinating, a Guardian article about prisoners in China being forced to mine gold as part of …
Esther: Woooow!
Sarah: Yeah, so they were saying they had to, you know, do the kind of physical labour in the day time and then in the evenings, like they were being forced to mine gold.
Esther: Well, that’s not okay.
Sarah: No! And there were things like physical punishments for not doing that and playing until they couldn’t see. But China has now banned using virtual currency by real world dice, they did that in 2009, but they’re kind of having similar [garbled] so it’s really weird because you can still… it still basically work, you can still do it. So yeah, that is the kind of … that is real and that is what surprised me because I thought it was something made up for the story until I read into it. I was surprised that he could sell stuff on, you know, do that kind of work but I didn’t realise it was going on, on such a large level and that people were being exploited in order to sort of get that, get those rewards and stuff, that was quite surprising
Rachel: Most MMOs, I mean, I know Guild Wars definitely has that, you’ll be standing around an area and suddenly get a message saying “BUY GOLD”.
Esther: Yeah, I’ve seen that.
Sarah: You ever
been tempted to?
Esther: Nah.
Rachel: I mean, Guild Wars is … going back onto Guild Wars. It’s… the reason I like Guild Wars so much is that you can earn a lot quite quickly.
Esther: Yeah.
Rachel: Yeah.
Esther: I’ve never been short of gold and you can use gold to buy diamonds, which you can use to buy…
Rachel: The [garbled]
Esther: Yeah.
Rachel: And you buy skins, which is just cosmetic. You can’t pay to win, which a lot of games you can do. And so you can like, buy pretty outfits for your horse or person.
Esther: and miniatures…
*laughter*
Esther: It’s fun!!
*laughter*
Sarah: It sounds interesting.
*more laughter*
Rachel: It is, I’ve now got a flying cat, Grayson and, you can earn that just by playing the game, you don’t have to pay. Coz, I try and I … right, and I say, I try, with a capital T, not spend that much real-life money on games.
Sarah: Yeah.
Rachel: But I’ve never been tempted …
Esther: In-game purchases.
Rachel: Yeah, in-game purchases, but I’ve never been tempted to cut corners and…
Sarah: only [garbled]?
Esther: The only thing that I really … that I purchased, was the transfer to a different server. I was on Guild Wars for about a year before I met Rachel and I was on a different server, coz you have separate servers that you play on. And then, once we realised we wanted to play together, I switched servers and that was 10 pounds. But that was … actually, you can pay in-game money to switch servers as well. You didn’t even have to pay in cash for that.
Rachel: But a lot of games, you can’t earn that currency that you have to pay. But I try and avoid the temptation …so I don’t even look at it. So the idea of buying something from a gold farmer is … to me, I don’t want to A) risk having my account tainted because it’s, you know, it might be locked and I don’t want my account to get frozen I want to keep enjoying having fun. If I want something that much, I’ll just play it until I go blind?
Sarah: Yeah ….
*laughter*
Sarah: I think if I did play those kind of games, I know what sort of person I am and I would just be like “I cannot … like, break the rules? I cannot cut corners, I have to do it myself.”
Rachel: I’m same yeah,
*laughter*
Rachel: Gotta do that grind.
Esther: I think, I think, the worst thing I’ve done is like ask Rachel “Come help me! I can’t do the thing!”
Rachel: *mocking voice* Rachel, come rescue me with your high level character!
Esther: *mocking voice* [completely garbled] I think that’s the most dodgy thing.
Rachel: Even that is not really cheating.
Esther: A lot of … that is the one thing I don’t like about online gaming, is that a lot of is set up not in a way that you HAVE to join a guild or you HAVE to be in a group, but to complete certain missions … and I’m like “NO, I’m a loner”
Rachel: I think like, I mean I play a mobile game because I don’t want to have to talk to people on public transport so…
Esther: Yeah, I know!
Rachel: So the most ways I can look preoccupied the better. So the mobile games, the Marvel one, and it makes you join a guild at the start? And it’s like … here’s Guild Chat!! And I’m like “naaah, no.” So, I’m still part of the guild. So, we still work together doing missions because you can’t get a lot of characters without it, but I don’t talk to them.
Esther: I always thought like, I could just make a guild that’s like “This is a guild for people who don’t want to be in a guild.”
Sarah: [overlapping] but you are forced to interact!
Esther: But the game, minimum interaction is required. Because I’m just so sick of it. And some guilds are like, super hardcore. I remember this guild on an online game once. And to me, it was like, oh I do it like in my off hours, like 5 minutes here, 5 minutes there. But then the guildleader started like, sending round messages like “Everyone has to do their daily quests every day! and get all the points blablabla” and it got so bad this other guy started messaging things like “excommunicate him! we’re gonna go and make our guild, do you wanna come?” So, there was this mass exodus at some point. I think I quite that game soon after because it sucked.
Rachel: It feels odd how the Fahrenheits… I quite like it.
Sarah: Yeah, I think it’s kind of cool.
Rachel: What’s odd is how the Fahrenheit’s keep to the all-female scenario. Like, how can they Gatekeep? Just because someone’s got a female Avatar doesn’t mean that they’re female.
Esther: I guess you have to select your gender?
Rachel: Even then, like, is it …. Is it only allowing people that identify as women? What people who don’t even identify as a gender? And it comes under this whole umbrella off like, …
Esther: On the one hand, I do feel that there should be female-only spaces where women can talk about, being and exist in safe spaces as women and I think that includes all women. It doesn’t matter what body you were born with, you say you’re a woman, you should be in that space. And, there should also be like non-binary spaces or only-non-binary spaces where people who are non-binary can meet and talk about their experiences and enjoy activities together without that pressure of having to confirm to a gender. But, I think these spaces can be really useful, but it’s about the way that you communicate about them, it’s about the way you, you know…. How do you ensure that your members are who they say they are in an online space? And like, how far are you gonna go? Are you actually gonna police membership? How do you …. If you say “this is a safe space because we only allow women” how are you going to police that? Because, I’m sorry, but women can be assholes. So, just because it is an all-female space, doesn’t mean it’s a safe space. Those are two different conversations.
Sarah: I think it depends on what your – what the intent of having a woman-only space in that group is, like why? Because the problem is that there are some women who are transphobic or, you know …
Esther: TERFS!
Sarah: Yeah! Also, on that note….
Rachel: Also, on…
Esther: Sorry… oh no…
Rachel: Sorry, I’m just looking through it now. Why does Raymond appear at the end?
Esther: who?
Rachel: The – the guy, the Raymond who gets….
Esther: Oh, it’s like a wrap party? Like [garbled] gone or dead?
Rachel: Yeah, but no, he’s at a Fahrenheit party.
Sarah: Yeah.
Rachel: and he… [garbled]
Sarah: But maybe that’s my sort of thing of like… there’s nothing wrong guuuuys [garbled]
Esther: Lucy is actually a very predatory character. Because she knows it’s wrong! She’s been … she’s the one, she knows that what they’re doing is against the rules. And without… and she doesn’t tell Anda that it’s against the rules. She just goes “you wanna….”
Sarah: She kinda grooms her.
Rachel: Sort of takes advantage of her.
Esther: Exactly! Who is this Lucy? Do we know who she is in real life? She’s there at the end, she reappears at the end. That screams super predatory to me. Because just because the group, a space is all-female, doesn’t mean there’s no predators.
Sarah: Interesting. We’ve kind of got off the topic of the thing, which is gold farming.
Esther: So, gold farming! Do we think gold farming itself is ethical?
Sarah: No, the problem is…
Esther: Why?
Sarah: The thing is, it gets really weird because initially it sounds really silly, it’s just this issue in-game and what does it matter, it’s just a game? But then, when you … and … there’s this layer of there’s people behind that and what’s going into it. There’s a particulars line where Anda says … on page 54, “people spend months trying to earn that much gold, how is that fair?” And it’s like … it sounds kind of silly at first when you think about it because it’s like, it’s just gaming, it’s not important. Then you realise that, the gold farmers have spent months and hours and stuff earning money…
Esther: Shouldn’t they be compensated for their labour?
Sarah: Yeah and it all gets very weird!
Esther: But it’s like … I mean …. I’m not gonna go out and farm vegetables.
*laughter*
Esther: I’m just saying! I’m just saying if you’re not …
[everyone talking at once, garbled]
[garbled laughter]
Esther: … that academic hunch comes in real handy. No, I’m just saying, like, [garbled]… In real life, we pay someone to do our farming coz we can’t and capitalism is hell. But no like that’s the thing, in real life, an arrangement like that is fine. Someone does a service for you and you compensate them for it. So why is it? It’s against the rules within the game and I understand there’s various reasons for that. It makes sense for games, the organisers that manage the game, to ban gold farming, it make sense. But, would we say that it’s unethical?
Sarah: The thing that concerns me is that, in the original, in the original short-story, it isn’t Raymond, it isn’t the guy in China who’s doing it – the goldmining himself. He’s the one who looks after, I think he’s … I think, I don’t remember if he’s the manager of the group of young girls in Mexico.
Esther: That’s very different.
Sarah: A group of young girls in Mexico who are doing the gold farming. He’s trying to look after them and getting them to organise in a union because euhm … And he explains that the young girls who are working were also doing like prostitution and things? So, when you look at it like that, you’re like … well, I mean, it’s providing some form of job for these people, but then….
Rachel: *groaning* male savior
Esther: Yeah, there are some issues with that narrative.
Sarah: Yeah, but, also kind of interesting that … how they’ve changed that.
Esther: Yeah because that, then the… I think in the story, the gold farming is presented as a victimless way to make money if you have no other options… because I think Raymond definitely. In Real Life, Raymond definitely kind of indicates that, he would be doing something else if the option was available to him but it’s not. It’s kind of like the least of all evils situation here
Sarah: Because it’s portrayed as not being okay that sort of Anda and Lucy are doing what they’re doing because it… They’re making a choice, they don’t have to do that. The money they are making is just for fun, kind of thing. It’s money that they can spend on fun things, it’s not their livelihood.
Esther: Isn’t Lucy a fulltime gamer though?
Rachel: I think … it looks like she’s the same age, I think? I dunno, she looks slightly older coz she’s got lots of piercings, therefore she must be older…. Because CLEARLY piercings are equated with age.
Esther: Okay, so I think we’ve talked a little bit about the gold farming and I’m just kind of euhm wondering if we’ve addressed everything that we want to say about that because it is a huge part of the novel and I know that for us, it might be the least interesting bit …
*laughter*
Esther: Because it’s… there’s so much other stuff we’ve enjoyed about reading it. But is there something else about gold farming per se that someone wanted to bring up?
Sarah: Just about the fact that the, I guess the graphic novel chose quite a simplified way of how unions and strikes work?
Rachel: Yeah!
Esther: Oh yeah!
Rachel: But at the same time it is a graphic novel for all ages.
Esther: Yeah.
Sarah: I suppose that’s the thing, it’s … I never really thought about what age it was aimed. I’m like “I’m reading it. Therefore, it is aimed at me.”
*laughter*
Sarah: Actually, I mean, if you were younger and reading it, yeah maybe …
Esther: Yeah.
Rachel: Yeah, because there’s an age for [garbled] It’s not even rated teen.
Sarah: Yeah.
Rachel: You’ve got a different back …
Esther: I do have a different back, but you’ve got a foldy cover! Yeah, it is aimed at a younger audience and they have definitely simplified the way that unions work.
Sarah: I think what I felt throughout this graphic novel was that there was a bigger piece of graphic novel living inside it that wanted to be born, that wouldn’t come out. But I felt that I could image, could sort of see and wanted to read, but it couldn’t quite get there.
Esther: Which graphic novel was that then?
*laughter*
Esther: Like, what would that have been about?
Sarah: Well, it would have been about the same thing but just, it would have gone into more like, it would have been maybe darker?
Esther: What? Why?
Rachel: Why would you want it darker?
Esther: No, I think … yeah, see, you can’t tell me that you want lighter stuff to read coz all the dark stuff is depressing and then come back and say “oh I want it to be darker” Like, no! The thing is right, I wouldn’t … I think what we’re craving as like slightly older readers of the novel that is meant to be for all ages is, we would have expected more character development, more depth maybe because I think Anda’s relationship with her mother is very interesting, I would have liked some more of that. I would have liked to see Anda talk about … talk with her father more about the whole union thing..
Sarah: Yeah.
Esther: And… Because… I think that’s done well, for a younger audience but like as an adult I’m kind of like “It’s not that easy though, is it!” and it isn’t.
Rachel: I think, like, the big problem for me in this book when I first read it was that I didn’t consider it for a younger audience.
Esther: Right.
Rachel: Coz to me it felt … the end was too Deus Ex Machina, it was too simple to euhm … I mean you have to dispend some disbelief for reading comics, but I felt like I had to dispense it too much for the ending
Esther: It almost feels, to me, it almost feels rushed. Like, it should have been a larger book
Sarah: Yes!
Esther: The set-up like, the set-up, we’ve just kind of addressed that it was like “hey! I’m a random gaming person, have some games!” Again, that could have been like developed into “oh, I’m running a national project, stand, blablabla” [repeating gibberish?] And basically just … more. And I think … it’s a nice, smooth read and I really enjoyed it but I…
Sarah: I want more.
Esther: I guess that’s a good summary, I want more.
Sarah: It’s an un-fried mars bar, is what it is, or any kind of chocolate bar of your choice.
[garbled]
Sarah: It’s enjoyable, but I want more now.
Esther: It’s kind of like when you get a box of celebrations and you have the one snicker and then you just go hunting for all the snickers, because you’re like “actually, I want an actual snicker bar.”
Rachel: Snickers are the worst. If you’ read the other book that Jen Wang has done recently, The Prince and the Dressmaker…
Esther: Okay?
Rachel: And it deals with gender and the representation of gender in a lot of detail.
Esther: Nice.
Rachel: And it is really good. I read it and I was like “I have no problems with this comic.”
Sarah: What’s it called again?
Esther: The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang.
Rachel: Or The Dressmaker and the Prince? [Note to our readers/listeners: it is The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang]
Esther: So yeah, that sounds really good.
Sarah: Yeah.
Esther: So, euhm, I think we’ve talked a bit about gold farming, unionisation and I think we all agree, the way that the way that unionisation is represented in the book is a bit simplified, but I personally couldn’t elaborate on how exactly to unionise. Unless, someone wants to kind of jump in and elaborate on the information that’s missing … that’s great? We can also go to the next bit. What say you guys?
Sarah: I feel very hypocritical here and I’m gonna be like “I don’t know enough about unionisation.”
Esther: Yeah, I don’t either.
Sarah: Not of the top of my head!
Esther: I know enough to say that you should join a union if you can because your boss will screw you over if the time comes. And that’s personal experience talking, just so you know. Even if you get on really well with your manager, your manager is pushed into a corner and put into a position…. Also your manager very often doesn’t have that much power anyways. So, it is important to unionise and important to write in union votes and ballots.
Rachel: It all depends because I don’t know if American unions follow the same rules as English Unions.
Esther: It’s a bit wonky and a bit complicated.
Rachel: I’m kind of glad it did simplify the unionization.
Sarah: I don’t necessarily mean, specifically how unions work. I just mean in terms of where it all fits.
Rachel: But I think in a way, the absence of that is really beneficial. Because just think of the absence that Anda has, the absence of knowledge of how China works and how Chinese … the job market works…
Esther: Law, yeah.
Rachel: Chinese law. Her complete ignorance in that, I think…
Sarah: it brings in some nice parallels?
Rachel: it’s the same as the audience [garbled]
Sarah: Because I know that she does kind of go at it with a kind of like “I can do this thing and I can sort this thing out and it’s all gonna be fine.” And then it does kind of crumble and Raymond does lose his job and there’s a litte bit of back and forth about it and the other gold farmer is quite angry at her.
Rachel: Ah Duo?
Sarah: Yeah, he doesn’t … you know, he has a go at her because she doesn’t realise what’s like for them and the reality of that life. But, it still kind of all wraps up quite neatly. It’s just like “oh, he happens to get offered a job back in his hometown by someone else he knows through gold farming” and they all get what they want in the end and… It’s like, it does kind of try to explore a little bit more but then it kind of chickens out a little bit and goes “actually…”
Esther: Yeah… I think it’s that thing where we say, we would have wanted more, but it’s not really geared towards that.
Sarah: Yeah.
Esther: Yeah.
Sarah: I mean, that’s okay, that’s fine.
Esther: Yeah, it’s still a nice read and is just interesting.
Sarah: Yeah.
Esther: So, that kind of brings me to the end of that little bit. Is there any else … anything else that we really wanted to discuss?
Rachel: Two bits.
Esther: Alright, go on.
Rachel: One, I really liked, on page 133, which is just after the conflict with Lucy and one of Raymond’s co-workers appears coz … and I really like how it implies the ignorance of applying your own cultural norms to another culture. I think it’s a really important message “nice job American, you don’t know anything about us. He got caught conspiring to tak down the company and was instantly fired.” And I think that’s a really important message, with the world being so connected now. I mean, I can’t even talk to my friends in America about how education works because I don’t even understand this junior system and More and…
Esther: Fuck More
Rachel: Yeah, exactly. But yeah…
Esther: Yeah.
Rachel: I think it’s an important message and it’s not turned into a big soap box. It’s well-addressed?
Esther: Coz even like getting your PhD is completely different because they have like a big exams in their first year and I’m like what? You don’t do exams in your PhD! What? You’re way beyond that. But yeah, they have this big big exam thing. Yeah, its completely different.
Rachel: Even their degrees … they don’t choose. They don’t choose what they want until after they get to 3 years.
Esther: Yeah.
Rachel: So, even though in some ways we’re very similar to America, we’re actually very different. I like that it highlights, actually, you can’t just apply your own cultural experience …
Esther: Yeah, the law … like, even kind of, well, societal structures are completely different, the law is different, the recourse people have is different.
Sarah: I think that, we kind of, we get a false sense of proximity because they’re in this online world together and they’re communicating. It feels like they are all together in actual fact.
Esther: It’s interesting, because you to tend to automatically almost apply your own cultural standard … even when we kind of … or you interpret everything through your own cultural standards even when you know that the cultural standard is different and the proximity kind of erases that kind of consideration. Like you said, the comic highlights that’s really well.
Rachel: Without turning it into a big thing.
Esther: A big thing. Yeah, it’s kind of just a nice nudge. We know, because she just tries to help, she meant to help, but … cultural imperialism!
Rachel: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Esther: Good intentions.
Rachel: And that’s what I think was euhm. It was kind of … they’re creating this whole message of team work in the comic.
Esther: Yeah.
Rachel: And there’s no team work of any sort either in real life or online.
Esther: Yeah.
Sarah: I also made a note of the fact that it was meant to be like “gaming is good”, “Gaming can teach you all these things” and blablabla and it’s like. But in no place in the comic do they show you how these things are learned or…
Rachel: Well it does at the end, she does have the confidence to go talk to Steph.
Sarah: Yeah, but not how she gained that and why she gained that, it just is … and it’s like … I dunno. It felt again like, these things were brought up and then not fully developed.
Esther: Yeah.
Rachel: I agree, but it also, for me, I think, it shows how you have a lot of online friends. It kind of shows the importance and how it can be good. It doesn’t show it to the extent that I would have liked it to, but it wasn’t going “Everybody’s online and the predators are out to kill you!”
Esther: No, I think one we kind of circumvent that because the art is so cute, it doesn’t feel threatening. But also, I think, you do see Anda flourish. You see her flourish and mature and become more confident. She dies her hair, which for her is a brave choice because she is like super eager to not stand out at all. But then with the hairdo, which is a more red than her regular brown.
Sarah: It’s the same as her avatar.
Esther: Yeah, she stands out a bit more. And, I do think you see, indirectly perhaps, the benefits of Anda being online and experiencing things and her relationship with Lucy. Because that, as creepy as we might think Lucy is a little bit, it does seem to benefit Anda in a really good way.
Rachel: We do see her and Lucy reconnecting in the end, doesn’t it, which is a nice positive.
Esther: A very nice positive.
Rachel: It would have been nice if there were other… I mean, the penguin character keeps coming back, so that’s a positive thing, for me, personally.
*laughter*
Rachel: But the idea of building community doesn’t appear until…
Sarah: Right at the end.
Rachel: Right at the end. You do have all the Fahrenheit’s helping her out at the end.
Sarah: but it’s never really said why… Like, there’s no build up to that of like creating bonds. It’s just very much like “you’re good so we will” [garbled] a bit odd.
Esther: Yeah.
Rachel: I think this comic could have done a lot more, but I also feel it didn’t need to. I think the story that is told was sufficient enough
Sarah: Yeah, are we just greedy?
Rachel: Are we just wanting too much from what is a simple narrative?
Sarah: Yeah.
Rachel: Are we reading too much into this comic aimed at children?
Sarah: Mmmm…. Should we like reconsider our whole lives?
Esther: I … Can we talk about our favourite panel for our wind down exercise?
Sarah: Yeah, I suppose we can.
Esther: So, my favourite bit is on page 101. This is when she is like, desperate to kind of get information but she has been banned from using the internet because her mum found out and I… obviously, the listener can’t see, but I hope you’ll check the book out at some point and have a look. So, basically, she is trying to like disguise herself when she’s in the café. She goes to an internet café to… because she can’t go online at home. She’s got like this ridiculous big coat and like a big scarf and her hat and like her sunglasses and to me, it’s really cutely drawn. It’s adorable and I love it. It’s also super funny because that’s exactly what a 14-year-old thinks a disguise is from like movies and things. And it’s like “I know it’s you, Anda, I know it’s you”. And I dunno, it seems particularly kind of the kind of joyful, funny, slightly naïve, sweet vibe that the entire book has. It’s kind of panel where nothing really happens, but I dunno, it stands out for me, I quite like it.
Sarah: Yeah, euhm…
Esther: I don’t know what your favourite moment was perhaps.
Sarah: I was gonna say, the penguin.
*laughter*
Rachel: The penguin is pretty great.
Sarah: One of these characters in the guild has this avatar that’s a penguin, which at one point is wearing what looks like a bucket on its head and then it’s later wearing a nice floral hat … floral silly hat thing? Other than that … I dunno, I just… I did enjoy the art in general. I really enjoyed the colour palette.
Esther: Yes.
Sarah: Especially the real life bit, I know it’s meant to be like … it’s meant to be a darker tone, but still a really satisfying colour. It’s a very wholesome look with lots of oranges and greens and browns and it felt quite warm and quite homely? I guess? And then, in contrast to the game world, which is a lot lighter and brighter
Esther: More pastel-y.
Sarah: Yeah, but it was nice. It was a nice change … because that’s why we called the title of this episode “the one where we go full colour” because this is actually the first graphic novel with reds … in the podcast that is fully, fully in colour. We’ve had bits of colour here and there, but this is the first one that’s fully in colour and it is nice.
Esther: I think it’s just kind of … it is …. It is, as a book entirely very different from the stuff we’ve had before. I think the colour really does stand out, because we’ve seen … lots of artists do interesting things with colour. For instance, Suffragette has that mostly in black and grey but has those pops of green and purple because of the suffragette colours and then of course, Sally’s shock of red hair, a very minimal but effective use in colour. The same goes for Blankets, very limited colour use, and .. ugh, what’s the other one?
Sarah: Ghost World?
Esther: Ghost World was like all green.
Sarah: green a very bright colour.
Esther: Yeah, very 90s in a way somehow. But this one has a very full colour palette, which I really enjoy. But even with that full colour palette, like Sarah said, it very clearly delineates a line between the real world and the digital world. Because like you said, the digital world is more pastel-y and has more fantastical colours. It’s got like, the background … a lot of it is kind of …
[garbled, talking over each other]
Esther: But it also kind of feels …. You’ve got this kind of … the special effects that you have in videogames come out in all the colours as well. And like Sarah said, the real life section has more autumnal, slightly darker, a little bit more muted.
Sarah: Yeah.
Rachel: Not very bright.
Esther: But still…
Sarah: It’s very much real life, but it’s not “oh it’s all grey and dreary”, it’s just very rooted in the real world.
Esther: Yeah.
Sarah: So, Rachel?
Rachel: My favourite panel, if you flick to page 32. It’s a panel that they use quite a lot over the introduction, with the videogame. And I got these 3 panels. They’re, if you draw a rectangle and divide it into triangles and then you’ve got the tiger kind of leaping up and then stands over Anda protectively, in mirroring the triangle shape? It kind of holds that composition and I just really like the composition of that. I think it’s a really nice, tidy panel and like … I mean… you’ve got the panel just on the back of my cover of my edition.
Sarah: That’s different yeah?
Esther: And you’ve got the tail of the tiger going over the gutter space on the left.
Rachel: And the ears as well.
Esther: I think …. It’s very neat storytelling isn’t it?
Rachel: Yeah.
Esther: Because the tiger leaps, but it’s demonstrated very economical and quick … that quick storytelling we’ve talked about is very present here.
Sarah: A lot of the fight scenes … That’s one thing that I did think they did really well in this, the fight scenes are really good. You get a lot … a feel of all this big action happening. But there’s no… I’d say there’s violence, but it’s just kind of…
Esther: it’s a little sanitised, isn’t it?
Sarah: Yeah, but it’s still, you get a sense of the movement and stuff with a lot of …
Esther: Adrenaline, kind of flowing, yeah.
Rachel: Yeah, they’ve used like feel and emotion lines really well. It does feel hyperbolic in that sense … like, it feels like a fight scene and you can .. and you’re reading it and “Oh yes it’s a f ight scene” but it’s not extreme? Using like, extreme angles. I think, yeah, Jen Wang … just hats off to them. Beautiful ….
Sarah: [garbled]
Esther: I think near the end we kind of went “oh I wish this” or “I wish that” about the book, but
nonetheless I think we all really enjoyed it
Sarah: Yeah and it’s that kind of thing where like, if you are gonna have to … we are going to have
the talk about it on a podcast and you find things we maybe didn’t like, but overall, it was very good
Esther: I think that’s very true and we brought that back very nicely with that kind of [garbled] that
we enjoy [garbled]
Sarah: so thank you Rachel for joining us and thank you to everyone out there for listening
Esther: And you can find out more information about the graphic novel recommendation list and today’s graphic novel via the links in the shownotes. Please feel free to email us with any feedback or questions using the email address wgipodcast@gmail.com. In the next month’s episode we will be discussing As the Crow Flies by Melanie Gillman. So, get to reading and we will see you next time.
