To make matters worse about 7D3 is that Ulania… Is extremely naive and unaware exactly how harmful the people who are fetishizing her are.
There’s that sheer fact she’s treated like she’s really stupid and naive that really bothers me… Ulania isn’t stupid, she’s clearly a smart cookie considering she forged a freaking greatsword without any blacksmithing knowledge. Not to mention rule an entire civilization, even in sub-modern Tokyo when her direct descendants don’t exist because her people died eons ago.
Ulania isn’t dumb, and she’s not that naive… But the game treats her like she is, when it least benefits her.
She literally has quests / storyline where people are openly sexualizing her and even invading her personal space for their fetishes… And she instead forgives them and allows them to continue it… Eigur’s canonically kinda dumb and really naive, but even he knew it was extremely bad, even if she wasn’t his queen.
Even though it goes completely against her character, there are ugly loopholes in her plot for the sake of telling otakus “it’s okay to fetishize women who may not know better, and take advantage of their naivety for your own technical sexual conquest. Even if you get caught, they’ll forgive you and even let you keep doing it!”
So her existence perpetuates the idea that sleazing after vulnerable women (which Ulania admittedly is, considering she’s eons in the future after her kingdom literally collapsed into the sea) is great n cool n okay n not harmful…
I absolutely understand your frustration with the way this quest was handled, but I want to coin my opinion that the quest was not about approving the fetishization of women. It was about showcasing Ulania’s heart as a ruler who thinks of the people after everything her own citizens had to endure. I don’t think the game treats her like she’s dumb or naive.
When Ulania first goes outside with Eigur’s insistence, she’s bombarded with lewd comments about her appearance that are questionable and vulgar in nature. She herself is aware of this, because she tells Unit 13 that the words and actions of Tokyo’s people are “uninhibited.” However, she’s glad to see how lively the people are after she was just rescued from a situation where all her citizens felt for so long was hopelessness.
During the stalker quest, she listens to what the “fan club” has to say about secretly taking photos of her and lying about it. She declines to punish them on the basis that she would rather nurture what small comfort they’ve found than crush it in a divisive act, because the world is in a turbulent state; from her personal experience of powerlessness during Atlantis’ fall, she prizes hope and unity in the people. More importantly, she enacts subtle negotiation with the members:
- She questions if their thoughts about her come from “a dark place.” They answer that their thoughts don’t, and she rewards them by making their fan club official.
- She commands them to stop acting in secrecy. In doing so, she will reward them by making herself more publicly available for interaction.
Ulania promotes communication, takes control of the situation, and quietly addresses the fan club’s behavior. She scrapes away the negative aspects by rewarding promised behavior that will correct what they were doing wrong. She has power: As the authority, she has full rights to revoke official status should the fan club go astray again. All in all, she handles the situation with the utmost maturity and fairness.
In summation, Ulania strives to do her part as a royal regardless of the era, and she has the ability to understand people fundamentally. The quest was about showing this side of Ulania as she continues to advocate for the people as a queen does, even long after her kingdom’s demise, and she doesn’t necessarily let herself be streamrolled.
Were the stalkers’ actions questionable? Absolutely. Should they have been punished? Yes! There are repercussions to actions that disrespect others; however, that isn’t what the quest was about, and that’s where the last question comes in - could there have been a better situation to highlight Ulania’s thoughtfulness as a ruler? Yes, no contest there. But I want to stress that none of this means that Ulania is naive or that her existence is meant to demean vulnerable women.
Sorry that this got long, and sorry for dredging up an old post. I just wanted to share how I interpreted the quest, whose entire premise I can agree was overkill.
I’m not saying Ulania is realistically naive, just that the game tries really hard to imply it when it harms her the most.
She’s a good character aside from certain design points (such as her obvious sex-appeal boobs, considering they’re literally how straight men interpret their “ideal, busty woman”) and honestly she’s an incredible leader, but it still doesn’t really excuse the fact the game tries to treat her as fetish bait, and the attempts to hide that are really shallow and meaningless, and refuse to directly acknowledge the actual danger in it.
Ulania is, without a doubt, a powerful leader, with a kind heart, but other characters in the game tend to serve to in some way demean her, mostly by making her seem naive and vulnerable, and that abusing her lack of knowledge is acceptable, because that quest literally ends with her telling people who were stalking and photographing her that it’s okay. Even if they’re not doing it in secret any more, it still stands to hint at the idea that stalking and photographing girls could lead to her approving of you and what you do.
The people who’ve interacted with/about her sometimes say something good, but sometimes they also openly sexualize and fetishize her. While she isn’t stupid or naive enough realistically to have little issue with that, the game instead goes with that. Even though at least two people verbally fetishized her basically to her face, rather than actually acknowledging the issues with it, the game goes “lol freedom of speech!!”
While it’s logical for her to admire the fact that the people can speak freely, unlike her country based on context, it was completely uncalled for and unnecessary to fetishize her at all. It can’t even be chocked up to “but she’s a different, ancient, new race”, because the actual fetish-related parts are by men oggling over her body, not her position, not her bloodline, nothing. Just her body.
Don’t get me wrong, like. I love Ulania. She’s one of my faves, which I didn’t expect granted when I first saw her. I thought she was going to be 100% sex appeal and nothing else.
Ulania’s negotiations addressed what was wrong about how she was being treated: She shows she isn’t naive about their thoughts, exercises power by giving official status with conditions attached, and her demanding no more secrecy allows her to have knowledge she lacked earlier. The NPCs are written to have been in the wrong. On the other hand, backlash for their behavior was lacking, and that’s where I think the quest should have gone with a different scenario from the start, so that there wouldn’t be this incongruous outcome between Ulania’s resolution and the fan club’s actions. It’s easy to take at face value that stalking and objectification are acceptable with the way things turned out, even though that’s not what the game was probably trying to say, which is where I understand your grievance with it stems.
I don’t think she admires the freedom of speech so much as she does the spirit of the people in being able to find something to be happy about during rough times, which she wants to cherish. This is good and bad - bad, because they’re expressing happiness about something that objectifies her appearance. It goes back to the quest’s strong direction for her character, but weak solution for the other issue the game dragged into the heart of the matter.
The game was very optimistic about how these matters were handled, which poses inherent problems when Ulania’s character design was clearly engineered with fanservice in mind. I just wanted to share what I thought was an attempt at something well-intentioned and having it implode a little instead, because the wrong platform, which was unavoidable due to said character design, was used.
Anyway, Ulania really was a pleasant surprise! Considering the amount of sex appeal her character design alone has, I had no idea what to expect, but she turned out to be wonderful.
(garou에서)
